Owner of Cheshire Business Sentenced for Engaging in Fraud Scheme

Two Connecticut men were sentenced Friday for engaging in a fraud scheme, Deirdre M. Daly, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut announced in a press release.

Adam Meyers, 44, of Southbury was sentenced to 18 months of imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release. Daniel Wall, 59, of Bridgeport was sentenced to three years of probation, the first 12 months of which he must serve in home confinement.

According to court documents and statements made in court, between approximately March 2008 and August 2012, Meyers and Jason Torrance devised a scheme to defraud their employers by arranging for payment on goods that never shipped and instead diverting those payments to themselves. Torrance worked out of the New Haven branch of a New Jersey-based electrical and industrial supply company (“Distributor-1”), and Meyers was a project manager for a New Britain-based electrical subcontractor (“Contractor”) that frequently purchased supplies from Distributor-1. Wall operated Bob Wall and Associates, a Cheshire-based distributor of electrical and other related equipment.

As part of the scheme, Meyers identified to Torrance projects on which he believed the profit margin for the contractor would permit them to divert excess profits to themselves without the contractor becoming aware. Meyers would submit a purchase order for materials to Torrance who would then submit a purchase order to Wall for the goods listed on the purchase order sent by Meyers. Wall then submitted an invoice to Distributor-1 for the materials listed on the purchase order, and Distributor-1 paid the invoice by mailing a check to Bob Wall and Associates. Distributor-1 then invoiced the contractor for the goods that were on the purchase order and the contractor issued a check to Distributor-1. Wall then hand-delivered a business check to Torrance for approximately 90 percent of the money that had been paid by Distributor-1 to Bob Wall and Associates, and Wall retained the remaining 10 percent as his share of the proceeds from the scheme. Torrance then paid out a portion of the proceeds of the scheme to Meyers.

At no time did any product on the purchase orders actually ship to the customer.

The victim companies lost more than $600,000 as a result of this scheme. Restitution will be determined after additional court proceedings.

Meyers and Torrance each pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud in Feb. 2015. Wall pleaded guilty to one count of misprision of a felony in July 2015. Torrance awaits sentencing.

This matter has been investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys David E. Novick and William J. Nardini.

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