A Middletown Township man pleaded guilty to taking part in a scam to defraud a major home improvement store chain.
Chad M. Stellato, 47, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and six counts of wire fraud, according to the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio.
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The U.S. Department of Justice released the following information:
According to court documents, from January of 2013 through January of 2016, Stellato and his co-conspirators devised a scheme to defraud the home improvement store Lowe’s Companies, Inc. (Lowe’s) through fraudulent merchandise purchases and returns at Lowe’s store locations in Alliance, Boardman and in other states.
To carry out their scheme, Stellato provided the funding for his co-conspirators to visit Lowe’s store locations and purchase large quantities of tile. The co-conspirators would place the boxes of tile in shopping carts and stack similarly packaged but lower-priced boxes of tile on top in order to conceal the higher-priced tile underneath. The co-conspirators would then take the shopping carts to the check-out counter and purchase all the tile, including the higher-priced title, at the lower price. As a result, Stellato and his co-conspirators were able to obtain multiple boxes of tile at a much lower price than the retail value.
The co-conspirators would then travel to a different store location and return the title, without a receipt, for a full refund placed on a Lowe’s stored value card. Stellato would provide funding to his co-conspirators to obtain the necessary identification documents required to obtain these refunds. Consequently, Stellato and his co-conspirators received more money in refunds from the returned boxes of tile than what they actually paid to purchase the tile.
Stellato would retrieve the stored value cards from his co-conspirators and use them to purchase items from Lowe’s, thereby receiving the value of the goods at a discounted cost. In total, Stellato and his co-conspirators are accused of defrauding Lowe’s of approximately $444,000.
The indictment came after an investigation by the U.S. Secret Service and Ohio State Highway Patrol.
Stellato is set to be sentenced by a federal judge on April 1.
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