Federal prosecutors have charged five Daytona Beach men with defrauding Xerox Corporation of some $25 million.
Acting U.S. Attorney James Kennedy says the Florida men were all involved in a conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, plus money laundering. They could each be looking at 20 years in prison and a quarter-of-a-million-dollar fine.
Prosecutors say a man named Robert Lee Fisher owned RBM Imaging, an authorized reseller of Xerox office equipment and supplies. The other four defendants own a furniture company and a couple of sham companies that were set up as part of their scam.
From 2008 through 2013, Fisher allegedly sold more than 60 Xerox printers to the fake companies, which proceeded to order more than $25 million worth of Xerox toner which they never used. They then resold that toner to another Florida man for nearly $9.5 million, and he kicked back half the money. The sham companies faked their ledgers to make it appear they were printing millions of copies they never made.