Pennsylvania parolee sentenced to 30 months in federal prison for odometer fraud scheme
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Earlier this month, a Pennsylvania man already on parole was sentenced to 30 months’ imprisonment by U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Conner following his conviction for odometer tampering and forging vehicle titles.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania recently announced that Earnest Fry of Harrisburg, Pa., was also ordered to pay victims more than $47,000 in restitution, $700 in assessments, and to serve three years on supervised release following his term of imprisonment.
Fry previously pleaded guilty to the offenses, according to a news release from the Justice Department.
According to U.S. attorney Gerard Karam, just months after Fry was released from state prison for burglary and theft offenses in October 2018, and while he was on parole, he devised a scheme to purchase used cars.
Karam said Fry altered the cars’ true mileages by replacing or resetting their odometers and then sold the vehicles online to “unsuspecting” customers who paid inflated prices for vehicles they might not otherwise have bought.
In addition, law enforcement said Fry altered or forged the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania titles to multiple vehicles that he sold by causing the titles to reflect false, lower mileages.
Karam said Fry altered the odometers on at least 55 used cars that he sold and rolled back more than five million miles on the vehicles.
“In some cases, Fry caused the odometers to be rolled back by nearly 200,000 miles,” the Justice Department said. “Fry’s offenses not only caused victims to pay far more for the cars than they were worth, but created the risk that buyers would incur additional losses due to likely increased maintenance costs, excessive insurance premiums and other unanticipated expenses.”