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High-Tech Defendants Sentenced to Jail
(February 8, 2001)
United States Attorney Denise E. O'Donnell announced today the sentencing of SAMUEL WILLIAMS, age 25, and DION WILSON, age 25, both of Buffalo, New York as a result of their pleas of guilty to Conspiracy to commit wire fraud and to transport stolen property in interstate commerce. Sentencing was before the Honorable William S. Skretny, U.S. District Court Judge. Based on the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, including the loss incurred by each defendant’s involvement, SAMUEL WILLIAMS was sentenced to 24 months to the custody of the Attorney General while DION WILSON was sentenced to 8 months. Each were also given a term of post-jail supervised release of 3 years. [Earlier, a cooperating defendant, DAVID RELAN, age 33, of Amherst NY, had been sentenced on August 2, 2000 to 4 months home confinement, 3 years probation, restitution and a $1,000 fine.]
Assistant U.S. Attorney Martin J. Littlefield stated that SAMUEL WILLIAMS and DION WILSON had been employed by SoftBank (now ClientLogic) as service representatives. (SoftBank/ClientLogic represents several major software and hardware producers, handling telephone inquiries, sales and complaints on behalf of those high-tech clients.) In their plea, the defendants admitted that they abused the trust and responsibility given to them by SoftBank/ClientLogic by illegally diverting and shipping computer hardware and software totaling more than $700,000 in a nine month period during 1997 and 1998. They did so by fraudulently authorizing "no-charge" shipments of computer products from SoftBank’s Ohio warehouse to "drop" locations throughout the Buffalo area. One of the recipients was DAVID RELAN who during a three week period in 1998 met with WILLIAMS and WILSON and had approximately $292,000 worth of computer products shipped to him for resale. All of the product received by RELAN was recovered by authorities.
In the course of the fraud, WILLIAMS and WILSON utilized their knowledge of SoftBank’s sophisticated electronic inventory system to cover-up the illegally authorized shipments. When finally discovered by SoftBank officials, SoftBank and specialists from the FBI unraveled the complex series of transactions which had been recorded in SoftBank’s computer system.
The convictions were the culmination of an investigation on the part of the Federal Bureau of Investigation under the direction of Special Agent-In-Charge Bernard Tolbert.###