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Georgia man sentenced to 7 years for running eBay store with stolen goods

P

Pardus

Diamond Member
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Posted: 3:17 p.m. Monday, April 8, 2013

Man sentenced to 7 years for running eBay store with stolen goods

By Marcus K. Garner

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A Roswell man was sentenced to more than seven years in federal prison for operating an eBay online store that sold items bought using stolen identities.

Robert A. Hill, 51, pleaded guilty in December to interstate transportation of stolen property, according to federal court officials.

Hill, prosecutors said, bought high-dollar electronics and other items, such as golf clubs, tools, iPhones, computers, video gaming systems and iPads, at 60 percent of their retail value from co-conspirators.

His cohorts used fake drivers’ licenses to get credit cards or to take over accounts at major retail stores like Home Depot, Target, Best Buy, Walmart, Lowe’s, Sam’s Club and Dick’s Sporting Goods, authorities said.

Over 10 years, ending in 2011, prosecutors said Hill sold more than $9 million in merchandise through his eBay store called atlantis_discount_warehouse_llc, and he knowingly did business with the fraudsters, often giving them lists of items he needed for his store, prosecutors said.

He stored the merchandise in ready-to-ship containers at his Alpharetta storage facility, and would ship items to customers across the country, authorities said. Federal agents found high-value electronic items and more than $44,000 in cash at the facility, court officials said.

“Robert Hill fueled his Internet-based fraud with the help of a group of identity thieves who gave him a steady supply of merchandise,” United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said in a statement. “His use of the Internet expanded his reach and magnified the crime, ending in millions of dollars of damage to both individual victims and retailers. Today’s prison sentence does justice for the widespread damage he caused.”

Hill was sentenced to seven years and three months in prison, followed by three years of probation, court officials said.
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Yet a few years ago the former governor of South Dakota purposefully ran a stop sign while speeding and killed a motorcyclist. He had over a hundred traffic infringements over the years and publicly bragged about speeding. Then he tried to lie that he wasn't driving, then tried to say he was on official business so the family could only sue the taxpayer, and then lied about being impaired because of his diabetes, and was finally convicted. Despite all this he got only 100 days in jail.

Our justice system is awesome.
 
Clowns like this are the reason I'd like to see a limited amount of corporal punishment return to this country's legal system! 😡
 
hclarkjr said:
that is not a very stiff sentence for what he did. he will serve that a be back out to do it again.
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This. He ran that store for years and made $9m in profit. His list of offenses must have been staggering.

Honest question, how much time would a person do for stealing and iPad and selling it on craigslist? If there is video of you stealing it out of a car or something, and the person you sold it to was an undercover cop. So you're pretty much red-handed. I would guess 1-2 years?
 
hclarkjr said:
that is not a very stiff sentence for what he did. he will serve that a be back out to do it again.
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Meh, he only got 7 years.
He'll get paroled in less than 2 years & be right back at it. (Though he may not be able to sit in a chair for a while!)
Small price to pay for netting ~$4 Mil.
(He will likely continue his e-bay business in the slammer since they now grant internet service to inmates!)
 
10 years to catch one thief while we know thousands more exist just like him

He will have spent less time in prison than he did running his enterprise ripping people off.
 
Does the sentence include time for taxes that May have been evaded ? Who knows how much money he has hidden away in other locations.
 
If you ever see someone selling new merchandise on ebay for a nice bit under retail for no apparent reason you should think twice. One thing they'll do is lift someones credit card info, list an item for a bit under retail on ebay, wait for someone to buy it, and then have the retailer ship right to their address. Profit and they never have to expose their own address. A lot of retailers now throw red flags when you try to bill and ship to different addresses.
 
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There's plenty people selling new items for 10 to 20 bucks less than retail. It's hard to tell with the only thing being the feedback stars.
 
Bryf50 said:
If you ever see someone selling new merchandise on ebay for a nice bit under retail for no apparent reason you should think twice. One thing they'll do is lift someones credit card info, list an item for a bit under retail on ebay, wait for someone to buy it, and then have the retailer ship right to their address. Profit and they never have to expose their own address. A lot of retailers now throw red flags when you try to bill and ship to different addresses.
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Uhh, "a lot of retailers" have ALWAYS done that. :colbert: If anything, it used to be the norm. I often breathe a sigh of relief when I see the option to have a gift shipped directly to a non-billing address (thanks, Amazon).
 
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Yeah a lot of times I have to order to a different address as my apartment office is not in the same area and they will leave your stuff outside the door.

I have neighbors that are old and stay in all day so I could ask them to keep an eye out but that doesn't always come in handy.
 
My guess is that someone got bribed, including the judges, prosecutors, and anyone else that had 'a say' in his sentencing.

Ten years of federal felony trafficking... for $9 mil, that is probably around 9,000 felony charges... someone got paid off for sure.
 
Not surprising, I've long thought Ebay (and others) was a great place for fencing stolen property. (Probably selling counterfeit goods too.)

Fern
 
Reminds me of that Microsoft employee selling stolen Windows OS, physical boxes for years and making millions. He got caught cause he showed off his Ferarri and Mansion online i think.
 
jupiter57 said:
Meh, he only got 7 years.
He'll get paroled in less than 2 years & be right back at it. (Though he may not be able to sit in a chair for a while!)
Small price to pay for netting ~$4 Mil.
(He will likely continue his e-bay business in the slammer since they now grant internet service to inmates!)
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Federal prison doesnt work like state prison. You get sentenced to x amount of time in prison and x amount of supervised release(if any) during sentencing. You don't get parole. Parole doesn't exist for federal inmates who were convicted after 1984. You can get sentences reduced some but not that much.

Look at Wesley Snipes. He had 10 counts of MISDEAMNOR failure to file taxes. He served 28 out of the 36 months. Guy in OP is going to be in prison for almost all of the 7.5 years.

As for money. The $9million figure was losses to the people. Loses for the victims was $9million, for which he paid 60% of the retail value, that is ~$5.4million. Unless he sold EVERYTHING at retail cost he made substantially less than $3.6million. That is not even taking into account ebay or transfer fees. It also doesn't say anything about taxes. All the personal property and cash he had was seized when he was arrested. I doubt he will have anything by time he gets out of jail. If I had to guess he probably made ~$2million or less depending on taxes but probably spent most if not all of it. I bet he probably paid taxes to make it look legit, plus he wasnt charged with criminal tax evasion, and well that charged wouldn't have been dropped.
 
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