As anyone who has hired a moving company in New York City can attest, plenty can go awry.
Jumbo trucks have to navigate narrow streets. Bringing bulky furniture into a small elevator requires the spatial perception of a Tetris master. And even the most carefully packed or heavily padded items might arrive in pieces after jouncing over potholes.
But between 2017 and 2020, customers of several affiliated companies with names like First Class Moving and Storage, Green Movers of America Inc. and simply Great Movers Inc., had a more serious concern: Would the movers trying to extort money ever return their possessions?
Two people accused of involvement in a scheme to hold cargo hostage were convicted in Federal District Court in Brooklyn last year of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. A judge determined that the scam had cheated some 800 customers out of $800,000.
On Wednesday, one defendant, Andre Prince, who had been accused of using fake names and misleading potential customers while working as a sales representative for some of the fraudulent companies, was sentenced to two years in prison.
Facing Judge Denny Chin, Mr. Prince said, “I would just like first and foremost to apologize for everything that transpired.”
While issuing his sentence a few minutes later, Judge Chin said Mr. Prince had “lied to his customers repeatedly.”
At least eight fraudulent moving companies controlled by a Brooklyn man named Yakov Moroz created the impression that they were trustworthy long-running businesses by misrepresenting their histories, customer reviews and ratings by entities like the Better Business Bureau.
Sales representatives misrepresented prices, prosecutors said, quoting low estimates that they never meant to honor, then cutting off contact with victims once contracts were signed.
On moving day, prosecutors said, they increased prices without warning, sometimes after household possessions had been loaded onto trucks. Those who objected were directed to representatives who replied with “scripted answers.”
“Sometimes,” prosecutors wrote, “Co-conspirators would charge the victims additional fees even after their goods were in transit, threatening to withhold delivery or even auction off the victims’ personal belongings if they did not pay the additional money demanded.”
That form of shakedown appears surprisingly common. The U.S. Department of Transportation maintains a web page titled “Wanted Fugitives” that includes more than 30 men and women, some labeled “armed and dangerous,” who have been accused of carrying out scams like the one Mr. Prince was convicted of taking part in.
Among them are five people at a constellation of Northern California companies who were accused of using phony fees to triple moving bills and then threatening to put customers’ items into storage if they did not pay up. Workers with a different California company were said to have rushed customers through paperwork, hiked prices and hidden goods. One member of that group was taken into custody in 2018 at San Francisco International Airport while on his way to Mexico.
Mr. Moroz, the main architect of the Brooklyn-based scam, managed to make good his own escape, according to The Daily News, which reported last year that he was believed to be hiding in Israel.
Kristy Mak, who was convicted alongside Mr. Prince of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, is awaiting sentencing. A fourth defendant, Kristen Smith, who pleaded guilty last year to the same conspiracy charge, was sentenced to time served.
In a memorandum to Judge Chin submitted before Wednesday’s sentencing, defense lawyers noted Mr. Prince’s “embarrassment and dismay,” but asked for a sentence without prison time, saying that their client had not known the full scope of the criminal operation.
Mr. Prince’s lawyers added that he had been directed by his employer to use a “stage name,” something he had accepted as a common business practice, but did not profit from the swindling of customers. They also said that he had been distanced from customers and not in a position to hear their complaints.
“This veil/wall of secrecy also clouded the sales representatives’ understanding of their companies’ inner workings,” the defense lawyers wrote. “Even as the veil began to slip away, and Mr. Prince began to suspect and learn about the reality of the business practices, he was already intertwined with the company.”
Prosecutors countered that jurors had rejected similar arguments, adding that former customers had testified about Mr. Prince’s part in persuading them to choose a moving company, and about their frustration at his unresponsiveness when they realized his promises were false.
The prosecutors added that Mr. Prince had used aliases including Allen Parks, Alex Parker and Aaron Pace — and had been well aware that Mr. Moroz’s companies frequently changed their names.
“The defendant was also on notice that customers regularly felt that they had not received the services that he promised them,” prosecutors wrote. “He was under no illusion that these practices were acceptable.”
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