Florida Man #5 Admits Xerox Toner Scam: $20M Fraud

ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Another Florida man has fallen, this time admitting guilt in a brazen $20 million scheme to rip off Xerox Corporation. Robert Fisher, of Daytona, Florida, pled guilty today to conspiracy to commit wire fraud before U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Wolford. This makes him the fifth defendant to cave in the sprawling case first indicted on April 3, 2018.

Fisher, operating through his company RBM Imaging – an authorized Xerox reseller – teamed up with the Hayneses and Bryan Day, owners of Haynes Brother Furniture in Daytona, to exploit a loophole in Xerox’s toner supply system. Xerox sells and leases office equipment, and crucially, retains ownership of the toner until it’s *used*. Customers are billed based on print volume, not upfront purchase.

The crew allegedly cooked up HDH Graphics, a sham company used to acquire sixty-three Xerox printers. While those printers barely churned out a page, the defendants fed Xerox a mountain of lies, claiming HDH Graphics was blasting through toner at a rate far exceeding industry standards. This deception tricked Xerox into shipping a staggering $25 million worth of toner to the fake company.

The Hayneses and Day then flipped the stolen toner for approximately $11 million to a buyer in Miami, and split the ill-gotten gains with Fisher. The operation was built on layers of fraud: fabricated usage reports, phony print samples, and the sheer audacity to claim millions of prints while many of the printers remained boxed up. They were essentially billing Xerox for air.

But the rot runs deeper than just the Xerox scam. Fisher also admitted to filing false tax returns from 2008 through 2013 and agreed to repay the IRS $192,495.42, plus interest and penalties. He’s also forfeiting any assets already seized by the government. The maximum penalty for the wire fraud charge is a hefty 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Kyle Haynes, Jason Haynes, David Haynes, and Bryan Day have already pleaded guilty to similar charges.

The investigation, a joint effort by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations and the IRS Criminal Investigation Division, continues to unravel the scope of this elaborate fraud. Fisher is due back in court on May 2, 2019, at 9:30 am. Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard A. Resnick is prosecuting the case. Contact Barbara Burns at (716) 843-5817 for further information.

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