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Darren Barr, 39, was sentenced to almost five years in prison after pleading guilty to an organized scheme that defrauded Lucas County Auditor in Ohio on Wednesday, Nov. 6, the US Department of Justice states in a news release.
Barr collaborated with unnamed co-conspirators in a plan that had them pretending to be legitimate vendors Lucas County was authorized to do business with, according to the news release. This scheme began in March 2018 and ran up to November 2020.
An investigation conducted by the FBI found that Barr and the others used information from public websites to get specific details on approved government vendor businesses, the news release states. The group also obtained the names of the Lucas County employees responsible for paying those vendors.
They used this information to create email accounts mimicking the approved businesses, according to the news release. Additionally, they opened fraudulent bank accounts with forged State of Pennsylvania and Internal Revenue Service corporate documents.
Once all of that was set up, Barr and the others sent invoices to the county employees from the false vendor emails telling them to submit payment to any one of the fraudulent bank accounts, the news release states. Because the employees believed they were dealing with legitimate vendors, they submitted payments to the fake bank accounts totaling $622,793.
As soon as those payments were received, Barr would quickly transfer the money into other bank accounts to try and conceal the fraudulent activities, according to the news release.
Barr will also have to serve three years of supervised release and pay $622,793 in restitution as part of his sentence, the news release states.
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