WILLIAMSPORT- The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that on February 28, 2022, Horace Henry. age 45, of New York, was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment by U.S. District Court Chief Judge Matthew W. Brann for organizing a scheme to defraud Sprint of $1.3 million that used stolen personal identification information of 390 victims, in 14 states, to fraudulently order over 1,600 iPhones.
According to United States Attorney John C. Gurganus, Henry previously pleaded guilty before Chief Judge Brann to charges of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and aggravated identity theft. Henry and his co-conspirators executed a scheme to defraud Sprint through fraudulent cell phone service contracts that were created using the stolen personal identification information of 390 identity theft victims, resulting in bogus orders for 1,630 iPhone XR cell phones. According to evidence presented at the sentencing, as a result of the fraud scheme approximately 892 iPhones were shipped to locations throughout the United States, including Centre, Northumberland, Montour, and Mifflin Counties. The fraud and identity theft scheme caused Sprint to incur actual and attempted losses totaling approximately $1,338,247. Henry and his co-defendants used shipment tracking numbers to determine when packages containing iPhones were scheduled for delivery, traveled from New York to the individual victims’ residences in Pennsylvania and other states, and retrieved the packages at the delivery locations, or directly from delivery persons using counterfeit identification documents bearing the personal identification information of the individual victims and photos of the conspirators.
In addition to the 12-year prison term, Chief Judge Brann also ordered Henry to serve a three-year term of supervised release upon release from custody, and pay restitution in the amount of $705,803 for cell phones shipped, but not recovered.
Henry was born in Jamaica and resided in New York at the time of the offense. He was previously deported and illegally re-entered the United States without permission. Henry’s co-defendants, Andrew Herdsman and George Bobb, entered guilty pleas and have been sentenced. Federal and state investigators arrested Herdsman in Centre County on January 25, 2019, after he had picked up fraudulently ordered cell phones, during a joint federal and state investigation conducted with the assistance of Sprint’s fraud management unit. On July 26, 2019, Delaware State Police investigators arrested Henry and Bobb in Delmar, Delaware as a result of information from Sprint indicating multiple fraudulent cell phone orders to locations in Delaware and Maryland. Another co-defendant Ian Thompson was arrested on a warrant issued following federal indictment, and he entered a guilty plea on February 17, 2022 and is presently awaiting sentencing.
The case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the Pennsylvania State Police, the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office, and the Spring Township Police Department, Patton Township Police Department, State College Police Department, and the Delaware State Police and Maryland State Police, with the support, cooperation and assistance of Sprint and Sprint Fraud Management. Assistant U.S. Attorney George J. Rocktashel is prosecuting the case.
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