Fake Veterans Charity Telemarketing and Counterfeit Bank Drafts: Michigan Man Gets 13 Years in Alaska

The verdict and the sentence

On July 28, 2015, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Alaska, part of the Department of Justice (DOJ), announced that a jury in Anchorage had convicted Alan Michael Bartlett, 46, of Owosso, Michigan, the day before. The counts were two of mail fraud, 20 of bank fraud, five of wire fraud, five of false statements to the U.S. Postal Service and five of aggravated identity theft.

On October 19, 2015, DOJ announced that Chief U.S. District Judge Ralph R. Beistline had sentenced Bartlett to 13 years in prison and five years of supervised release. Before sentencing, the judge called Bartlett "truly a danger to the community" and said he preyed on "the innocent, the elderly, and the ill, and showed no remorse."

How the scheme worked

According to the trial evidence presented by the DOJ:

• Bartlett set up two businesses, United States Disabled Veterans, LLC, and United States Handicapped-Disadvantaged Services, LLC. Their stated mission was "to help provide real jobs for disabled & disadvantaged Americans."
• The companies claimed to sell products for donations that would "provide jobs for the handicapped." There were no jobs, and the money did not go to veterans or disabled people.
• Bartlett solicited donations through telemarketing calls and mailed brochures.
• When small donation checks came in, he made counterfeit demand drafts using the bank names, routing numbers and account numbers on the checks, then ran them as fraudulent electronic payments for his own benefit.
• He filed forged power of attorney forms with fake notary seals to try to reverse banks' fraud reversals.
• He used donors' personal information to file forged change of address requests, sending their financial mail to his home.
• Posing as a municipal police detective, he called one victim to talk them out of reporting the scheme.
• He tried to get the pension benefits of an elderly man with Alzheimer's and to access the bank account of another person with dementia.

The sentencing release dated the scheme from December 2009 to December 2012. The conviction release cited July 2011 to January 2012 for the conduct in Alaska and elsewhere.

Where he learned it

DOJ said Bartlett learned the telemarketing business and obtained donor call lists while working for Arizona telemarketing companies in 2008. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) shut those companies down in 2009 for falsely claiming to be charities and saying donations or purchases would help handicapped or disabled people.

The U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) investigated.

The bottom line:

A Michigan man who used telemarketing calls to solicit donations for fake veterans and disability charities, then used donors' check data to make counterfeit drafts, was convicted at trial and sentenced to 13 years.

Key takeaways

1. Charity telemarketing was how he found victims.
2. Donor check data was used to take more money.
3. Donor call lists came from telemarketers the FTC later shut down.
4. Phone intimidation was used to discourage a report to police.
5. Identity theft counts were added to the fraud charges.