The United States Attorney for the District of Vermont announced that a federal grand jury in Rutland today indicted Randall Swartz, 58, of Orleans, on 11 counts of mail fraud. Swartz will be arraigned on these charges in the near future in U.S. District Court in Burlington. No court date has been set.
According to today’s indictment, until January 2017 when he was fired, Swartz was employed as the maintenance manager at Agri-Mark’s cheese-making plant in Cabot. As maintenance manager, Swartz was responsible for maintaining, repairing and replacing all machinery and equipment at the Cabot site. The maintenance budget amounted to several hundred thousand dollars each month. Swartz also owned a side-business, Kingdom RO, which sold reverse osmosis systems that were used by producers of maple syrup to concentrate and purify maple sap. Agri-Mark also employed reverse osmosis technology at its Cabot facility.
The indictment alleges that beginning no later than 2010 and continuing up to the time of his termination, Swartz defrauded Agri-Mark by causing the company to order hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of reverse osmosis equipment that was too small for Agri-Mark to use in its cheese-making processes. Instead, Swartz allegedly stole the equipment and installed it in smaller RO systems he sold to clients of Kingdom RO. It is charged that Swartz further defrauded Agri-Mark by using company employees, on company time, to assemble and install these RO systems. The indictment alleges that Swartz used the U.S. Postal Service and private commercial carriers to deliver this fraudulently-obtained RO equipment either to the Cabot plant or to Swartz’ house.
The United States Attorney emphasizes that the charges in the indictment are merely accusations and that the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until he is proven guilty.
If convicted, Swartz faces up to 20 years of imprisonment and a fine of up to $250,000. The actual sentence would be determined with reference to federal sentencing guidelines.
This case was investigated by the Vermont State Police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Department of Homeland Security Investigations.
Swartz is represented by Richard Goldsborough. The prosecutor is Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Waples.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
