BOSTON - A Salem man was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Boston in connection with a scheme to defraud Home Depot of over $45,000.
Robert Dooley, 56, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Douglas P. Woodlock to 18 months in prison, three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay restitution of $46,798. Dooley was also ordered to stay away from all Home Depot and Lowes stores during his period of supervised release. In August 2016, Dooley pleaded guilty to 10 counts of wire fraud.
Between January 2016 and February 2016, Dooley engaged in a scheme to defraud Home Depot by “returning" items he never purchased from the store, in order to receive store credit. On each occasion, Dooley entered Home Depot stores empty handed and gathered merchandise totaling $500 to $900. At the returns desk, Dooley falsely claimed that he previously purchased the items, but did not have a receipt. When he provided this driver’s license number to the clerk, Dooley often varied the number so the “return" would not immediately be detected as fraudulent. Dooley was then issued a Home Depot gift card for the fraudulent return. Dooley perpetrated the scam over forty times at Home Depot stores in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Maine, resulting in over $45,000 in fraudulent returns.
In 2007, Dooley was convicted of federal wire fraud charges arising out of a nearly identical scheme in which he defrauded Home Depot in excess of $330,000 from July 2004 through October 2005. In that case, he was sentenced to five years in federal prison.
Acting United States Attorney William D. Weinreb and Harold H. Shaw, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Field Division made the announcement today. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Eugenia M. Carris of Weinreb’s Public Corruption Unit.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
