TX Man Defrauded 200 Minnesotans With Telemarketer Scheme: Feds

MINNEAPOLIS — A Texas man pleaded guilty on the eve of trial to his role in a $4.8 million nationwide telemarketing fraud scheme that targeted elderly and vulnerable victims, announced U.S. Attorney Andrew M. Luger.

Jeremy Wade Wilson, 42, of Fort Worth pleaded guilty Tuesday to six counts of wire fraud and SCAMS Act violations. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for Sept. 26.

Wilson and his company defrauded more than 14,000 victims across the U.S., including more than 200 victims in Minnesota, according to prosecutors. Wilson’s company received more than $4.8 million from victims of his scheme, authorities said.

Authorities said Wilson ran Publishers Elite, a Texas-based company involved in fraudulent magazine sales.

From 2013 through 2019, Wilson ran a telemarketing call center in Arlington, Texas, where Wilson provided his telemarketers with scripts containing fraudulent sales pitches for use in defrauding consumers out of hundreds or even thousands of dollars, according to prosecutors.

Wilson knew that many of the consumers on these lists were elderly or otherwise susceptible to fraudulent and deceptive sales tactics, investigators said.

Wilson directed his telemarketers to call the people on these lists and trick them, through a series of lies and misrepresentations, into signing up for expensive magazine subscription packages, according to authorities.

This case results from an investigation conducted by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with assistance from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration and the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office.