Baltimore – In a shocking case of corporate greed, Chester William Bigelow, 58, the president of Frederick Mail Preparation Service, RMS Direct, Inc., has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, resulting in losses of over $628,500 for his non-profit clients.
According to court documents, Bigelow and his vice president, Stephen Reid, falsified postage statements to misrepresent to clients that mailings were being sent out in a timely fashion when, in fact, the mailings were late. Beginning in 2009, the duo selected certain mailings or portions of mailings that would not be submitted at all to the USPS for delivery, causing clients to overpay RMS for postage and services.
Bigelow and Reid used a variety of tactics to carry out the scheme, including generating false postage statements, forging the signature of the USPS Acceptance Clerk, and creating a false impression of the special USPS date stamp used on the postage statement. They even went so far as to recreate the date stamp by hand, but were unsuccessful.
However, in 2006, RMS employees gained unauthorized access to the USPS Acceptance Clerk’s key to the filing cabinet where the date stamp was stored. Bigelow instructed an RMS employee to make a copy of the key, which Bigelow kept in his desk drawer. From that time until 2010, Bigelow, Reid, and RMS employees operating at their direction used Bigelow’s copy of the key to gain access to the date stamp when the USPS Acceptance Clerk was not present in order to falsify postage statements.
The scheme was uncovered in 2010, when the USPS adopted a computer-generated Mailing Transaction Receipt to certify mailing. The receipt made it more difficult for Bigelow and Reid to falsify postage statements, ultimately leading to their downfall.
Bigelow was also ordered to perform 200 hours of community service and to forfeit $628,581.48, representing postage payments made to RMS by its clients, but never paid to the USPS, as well as $13,500, which he withdrew from the RMS bank account and was used by his family members to purchase a car for their personal use.
The sentence was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein and Postal Inspector in Charge Gary R. Barksdale of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service – Washington Division. The case is a stark reminder of the importance of corporate accountability and the consequences of corporate greed.
RELATED: Terry Man Gets 10 Years for Child Porn
Related Federal Cases
- Pit Bull Puppy Scam Lands Maryland Man in Federal Prison · Maryland
- MPD Cop, Accountant Plead Guilty to COVID Loan Scam · Maryland
- Ghana Passport Scam Queen Dishes Out 45 Years · Maryland
- ‘Ghanaian Passport Scam Queen’ Charmaine Brown Guilty of Passport, Wire, Bankruptcy Fraud · Maryland
- Calif Man Pleads Guilty in UPS Account Fraud Scam · Maryland
Key Facts
- State: Maryland
- Category: Fraud & Financial Crimes
- Source: DOJ Press Release ↗
ðŸâ€â€™ Get the grimiest stories delivered weekly. Subscribe free →
