Philadelphia Man Sentenced for Carrying Out Scheme to Defraud Lucas County Auditor of More Than $622,000

TOLEDO, Ohio - A Pennsylvania man has been sentenced to 57 months in prison after pleading guilty to an organized scheme that defrauded the Lucas County Auditor of more than $622,000. From March 2018 through November 2020, Darren Barr, age 39, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, collaborated with others to carry out a plan to obtain money by pretending to be legitimate vendors with which the county was approved to do business.

In addition to his prison sentence, U.S District Judge James G. Carr for the Northern District of Ohio ordered Barr to serve three years of supervised release and pay $622,793.62 in restitution.

During the investigation, law enforcement officials discovered that the fraudsters used information found on public websites to obtain specific details about approved government vendor businesses. Among the information they gathered, were the names of the Lucas County employees who were responsible for paying vendors. Using the data they found, Barr and his co-conspirators created email accounts to look like those of the approved businesses. They also opened fraudulent bank accounts with forged State of Pennsylvania and Internal Revenue Service corporate documents. After each step of the scheme was in place, Barr and his co-conspirators carried out their plan.

First, legitimate invoices were sent to the county employees from the false vendor emails they controlled. Instructions in the email directed the employees to submit payment to any one of the fraudulent corporate bank accounts created by Barr and his co-conspirators. Because they believed the emails to be from legitimate vendors, the employees submitted payments to the sham bank accounts controlled by the scammers.

As soon as payments were received into the fraudulent accounts, Barr would quickly transfer the money into other bank accounts he and his co-conspirators controlled in an attempt to try and conceal their activities.

This case was investigated by the FBI Cleveland Division. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Melching for the Northern District of Ohio.

To report fraud, visit justice.gov/criminal/criminal-fraud/report-fraud.