IRVINGTON, NJ — An Irvington man has been sentenced to 37 months in prison for his role in a phony check scheme that stole more than $2 million in merchandise from multiple home improvement stores throughout the country, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito announced Oct. 10.
Reginald Phillips, 56, previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Katharine S. Hayden to an information charging him with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court, starting in December 2013 and continuing through February 2017, Phillips spearheaded a conspiracy of several individuals — four of whom have also pleaded guilty in the case — who worked together to obtain merchandise or store credit from home improvement stores along the eastern United States by purchasing items with fraudulent checks.
Phillips and his conspirators entered home improvement and other retail stores and gathered high-value items like air conditioners, hardwood flooring and expensive home wiring. They then “purchased” the items by handing the cashier a fraudulent check with a phony name but authentic account and routing numbers or by pretending to be an authorized signatory on a store credit account that they had previously opened with a phony check.
During many of the transactions, Phillips displayed fake driver’s licenses that had been created by one of the other conspirators, which either duplicated the phony name imprinted on the fraudulent check they presented for payment or matched the name of an authorized signatory on a store credit account that they had previously opened.
In total, Phillips and his conspirators stole more than $2.4 million in merchandise from various retailers in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, North Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, Connecticut, Massachusetts and South Carolina.
In addition to the prison term, Hayden sentenced Phillips to three years of supervised release.
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