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Car dealership helps uncover crime
7/11/2009
Kevin Rader/Eyewitness News
Indianapolis - Prosecutors say a man withdrew large amounts of money from the Federal Reserve Bank last year and a car dealership helped uncover the crime.
It all started, according to Capitol City Ford, in July 2008 when Walter Eugene Lunsford purchased four cars. Investigators allege he used his own social security number in addition to stolen account and routing numbers and then asked the dealership to withdraw the money.
"What difference does it make if you use routing numbers you obtain or a gun? A theft is a theft," said Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi.
The ruse surfaced when he returned in September to purchase a dozen more.
"We drafted on it three times to the tune of $300,000, but the third draft bounced," said Bob Thomas at Capitol City Ford.
That raised some eyebrows, because Capitol City didn't know actually where the money was actually coming from. What they found shocked them.
"We alerted the feds to the fact that someone was tapping into the Federal Reserve system to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars at a crack," Thomas said.
"This defendant was using that same account to pay utility bills last year. His IPL bill, Citizens Gas and those utility companies had to return that money to the Treasury as well," Brizzi said.
There is the rub.
The feds got their $150,000 back from Capitol City Ford so the dealership was out the money and the cars and what's more, the federal government declined to press charges in the case.
"Capitol City Ford took the hit. They ended up shooting the messenger and they said we were on our own," Thomas said.
He called Brizzi, who took the case before a grand jury. That resulted in five counts each of fraud and theft.
"First utilities, then a couple of cars, then a couple more cars and then it's 12 cars," Brizzi said.
He says the feds have since closed that loophole and the country is on alert to this type of white-collar crime. Lunsford also has a pending charge of carrying a handgun without a license and possession of a weapon in an airport.
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