EAST ST. LOUIS • An Okawville man has been indicted in federal court in East St. Louis for allegedly running a pyramid scheme involving photocopiers.
The indictment accuses Kevin E. Welch of bilking schools, churches, community organizations and other businesses from 2001 to 2009 by signing them up for multiple leases on copiers that they no longer owned.
Welch would replace the organization's copier and tell them that their old lease had been voided and replaced by a new lease, the indictment says. Welch lied, prosecutors say. Welch also doctored leases, pretended to be an authorized representative of a company and provided used equipment when he had promised new gear, the indictment says.
Welch now faces two felony counts of mail fraud and one count of engaging in a monetary transaction with unlawfully-derived property.
Last year after a bench trial in St. Clair County, Welch was ordered to pay $1.2 million to a Belleville private school, including $700,000 in punitive damages, after similar allegations were made.
Welch denied wrongdoing, saying that the Governor French Academy should have understood the terms of the leases.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/l...13-0017a4a78c22.html
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