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Man orchestrated plot to resell $3M in equipment — all from GA prison cell, feds say

A 39-year-old man posing as a buyer for a major pharmaceutical company tried to purchase nearly $3 million in construction equipment for a new facility he said was being built in rural Georgia, according to federal court filings.

But there was no pharmaceutical facility to be built, prosecutors said, and the man was far from a purchasing agent.

Damon Thomas Young was an inmate with the Georgia Department of Corrections, the government said.

Using contraband cellphones and the alias Morgan Sylvia, he is accused of attempting to defraud equipment dealers out of $2.8 million by ordering heavy construction equipment from prison and selling it on Craigslist.

Young was sentenced on Tuesday, Nov. 30, to seven years in federal prison — five of which will run consecutively to the state sentence he’s currently serving, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Georgia said. The remaining two years will be served concurrently with his state sentence.

Young could not be reached for comment, and a public defender representing him did not immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment.

“Inmates should not think that the crimes they commit from prison will go unpunished just because they are already incarcerated,” U.S. Attorney Kurt R. Erskine said in a news release announcing the sentence. “As in this case, inmates who commit crimes from behind bars face additional federal prison time to be served after their state sentences end.”

Equipment to homes of family members

Young has been in prison since 2010 on charges he assaulted a police officer, the government said. In August 2019, he was moved from from the state prison in Reidsville to Hays State Prison in Trion, Georgia. The alleged fraud occurred while he was in both prisons, court documents state.

Prosecutors said Young got a hold of a contraband cellphone while in prison. According to the indictment, he used the phone in July 2019 to call a sales employee with Ascendum Machinery, a Volvo construction dealer headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Young told the employee he was a purchasing agent for AbbVie, the Illinois-based pharmaceutical company. He said AbbVie was planning to build a new facility in Ranger, Georgia, and that he was charge of getting the necessary construction equipment, the government said.

For the next two months, Young is accused of sending a slew of doctored documents to the sales employee — including credit applications, purchase orders, promissory notes and insurance documents.

Prosecutors said the paperwork listed corporate officers from AbbVie and, in some cases, contained forged signatures of the company’s chief financial officer. Young then had the equipment delivered to his family members’ homes, according to the indictment.

Young is accused of replicating the scheme with Border Equipment, an equipment supplier based in Augusta, Georgia.

Must pay $30,000 in restitution

According to court filings, he ultimately tried to defraud the suppliers out of $2.8 million worth of machinery. Young’s public defender said he received four pieces of equipment from Ascendum worth more than $538,000, all of which the company has since recovered. Two pieces of equipment were “still on the property of Mr. Young’s family members when law enforcement officers located it,” his lawyer said.

Prosecutors said he used the money from the Craigslist sales to buy two Chevrolet work trucks.

A grand jury indicted Young on 21 counts of wire fraud and two counts of identity theft in March. He pleaded guilty to one count of each in August.

The government asked for a prison sentence of seven years and 10 months, citing Young’s “lengthy criminal history” and a need for deterrence.

“Calling this far-reaching fraud scheme brazen is probably an understatement,” prosecutors said.

Young’s public defender sought a sentence of five years, saying in part that there was a “gross disproportionality” between the intended loss and how much equipment Young actually succeeded in buying.

The judge ultimately sentenced Young to seven years and ordered him to pay $30,000 in restitution.

His latest possible release date on the assault charges is June 16, 2030, the government said.

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