$1M Fraud Scheme Sends IE Man To Prison

INLAND EMPIRE, CA -- An Inland Empire business man was sentenced to nine years in prison on Monday for two schemes that ripped victims off of more than $1 million. Federal authorities said David William Bell, 55, was ordered to pay the money back to his victims.

Bell, of La Crescenta, ran a company called UST Development, Inc. – which operated in Ontario and Pomona under a string of names, including US Telecom – that he used to defraud a host of victims through two separate schemes. Bell used different titles while at UST, including president, director and CEO.

In the first scheme, which ran from 2008 through 2010, Bell convinced a series of third-party payroll companies to fund UST’s payroll – and then failed to reimburse the companies for paying himself and his employees. In some cases, Bell sent checks to the payroll companies from accounts that did not have sufficient funds to cover the checks.

In the second scheme, Bell and his employees sent out mailers that fraudulently appeared to be bills to thousands of small businesses and other entities, most of which were located across Southern California. The mailers – which were sent through the end of 2011 and used words like “invoice,” “statement” and “past due” – told recipients that they owed UST $175 or $350 for “Telecom Maintenance/Service Call.” Many victims paid UST based on the fraudulent claims, when in reality they did not owe UST any money.

The case against Bell was investigated by the United States Postal Inspection Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Sean D. Peterson and Abigail W. Evans of the Riverside Branch Office.

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