Albuquerque couple Matthew Channon, 39, and Brandi Channon, 37, were sentenced Monday for a brazen wire fraud scheme that bilked OfficeMax out of more than $100,000 through a web of fake rewards accounts. The pair, both residents of Albuquerque, N.M., were convicted on all seven counts of a 2013 indictment charging them with conspiracy and multiple counts of wire fraud.
Matthew Channon received a sentence of one year and one day in federal prison, followed by two years of supervised release. Brandi Channon avoided prison time but was handed three years of probation, including six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service. The court also ordered the couple to jointly forfeit $105,191 to the United States and pay $96,000 in restitution directly to Office Max/Office Depot.
The fraud, which ran from August 2009 through June 2011, relied on the abuse of the MaxPerk Rewards program. Prosecutors proved the Channons created over 5,000 fake MaxPerk accounts under fictitious names—circumventing the one-account-per-person rule. Using interstate wire communications, they falsely claimed rewards credits tied to legitimate customer purchases, racking up more than $105,000 in fraudulent certificates.
At trial, a jury heard evidence that the Channons falsely reported over 60,000 transactions involving nearly $2,000,000 in purchases across more than 300 OfficeMax stores in over 20 states. None of the purchases were theirs. Instead, they hijacked transaction data, gaming the system to inflate their rewards balance and cash in on merchandise they never bought.
Convicted on January 22, 2016, after a seven-day jury trial, the Channons’ scheme unraveled under scrutiny from the FBI’s Albuquerque Division. Investigators traced digital footprints, account creation patterns, and redemption logs to expose the scale of the operation—one of the most elaborate retail rewards frauds uncovered in the region.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Margaret M. Vierbuchen, Holland S. Kastrin, and C. Paige Messec, who emphasized the deliberate, sustained nature of the fraud. “This wasn’t a mistake or an oversight,” said one prosecutor. “This was a calculated effort to steal from a business and betray the trust of a customer rewards program.”}
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Key Facts
- State: New Mexico
- Agency: DOJ USAO
- Category: Fraud & Financial Crimes
- Source: Official Source ↗
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