Three more defendants indicted in alleged $8M mail-fraud scheme targeting 5K-plus companies

Three additional defendants have been an indicted in an alleged mail-fraud scheme that defrauded more than 5,000 companies out of millions of dollars.

John Engler, Alec Dierna and Nicholas Scarantino have been charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Previously charged were Tommy Lee Coburn, Kyle Paul Edward Gibson, and Heather Dierna.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Engler began mailing fictitious invoices to primarily large companies throughout the United States for cleaner/degreaser products, which the companies would believe they had ordered and received, in January 2019. The U.S. Attorney’s Office says Alec Dierna joined the scheme in 2020, followed by Coburn, Heather Dierna, Gibson and Scarantino in 2021 — and that the scheme targeted large companies because it was less likely, during the COVID-19 pandemic, that their accounts payable departments would question the invoices’ legitimacy.

The fake invoices were mailed from Florida and Rochester, and the defendants placed statements that the documents were merely “solicitations” with no obligation the pay the amounts on the invoices — but they were placed on hard-to-find spots on page two of the invoices, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office — which said that was so the defendants could claim that the documents were merely meant to “solicit” future business from the companies.

U.S. Attorney Trini Ross says 5,458 companies were tricked in this way — including companies in Rochester, Henrietta, Brockport and Avon, among other sites — and paid a total of $8,010,543.590 to the fake cleaner companies. The defendants would then have inexpensive cleaner and degreaser products delivered to the victim companies, Ross said.

The FBI, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and the IRS investigated.