Thomas Thanh Pham, a 53-year-old resident of Burnsville, has been sentenced to 84 months in prison for defrauding an electronics manufacturing company based in California. The announcement was made by Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph H. Thompson. In addition to the prison term, Pham will face three years of supervised release and must pay restitution amounting to $2,943,840.
Acting U.S. Attorney Thompson remarked on the sentencing, stating, “Fraudsters have flocked to Minnesota for far too long. Pham is no exception. He is a serial fraudster who has demonstrated that he will not stop until he is stopped. Thanks to the hard work of law enforcement, for the next 84 months, Pham will be where he belongs—in prison.”
Special Agent in Charge Alvin M. Winston Sr. of FBI Minneapolis commented on the case: “Bad actors like Pham take advantage of hardworking Americans in order to enrich themselves by defrauding others. With this sentence, Pham has been held accountable for his crimes. The FBI and our partners will continue working to stop schemes like this one and protect the public from being exploited.”
Pham's fraudulent activities took place between 2019 and 2020 when he devised a scheme targeting a San Jose-based company referred to as Victim A. As CEO of Enterprise Products, LLC, Pham misrepresented himself as a broker capable of arranging lucrative service agreements with large electronics companies.
He falsely promised Victim A multi-million-dollar contracts facilitated through Enterprise Products and used fabricated documents and fake negotiations involving an associate posing as a corporate executive to gain trust.
Pham required Victim A to pay a "deposit bond" totaling $1,278,000 under false pretenses and misappropriated these funds instead of holding them securely as promised.
Throughout his criminal history spanning over three decades, Pham has accumulated numerous fraud-related convictions including felony thefts and check forgeries among others.
Judge Ericksen noted during sentencing that Pham had proven himself an efficient perpetrator of fraud through his skilled execution of schemes refined over many years.
The investigation leading to this conviction was conducted by the FBI with prosecution handled by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Matthew S. Ebert and Rebecca E. Kline.
