Duo Gets 2 Years Each For Stealing $257K From Hackettstown Home Depot, Others

HACKETTSTOWN, N.J. – Two New York men have been sentenced to more than two years in prison each for their roles in scamming the Home Depot store chain out of hundreds of thousands of dollars during a two-year period, including the Hackettstown location.

Renauld Medard, 75, and Wesly Dieudonne, 31, were sentenced to 30 and 28 months in prison, respectively, after being convicted for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, United States Attorney Paul Fishman announced.

Over the course of two years, from 2009 to 2011, Medard and Dieudonne would go into various Home Depot stores, purchase high-priced items, then return with the original receipt but no goods.

At that point the men would find the same product on the shelves, go to a different register in the store, buy a lower priced item before leaving the store and show proof of purchase for the larger item they had just taken off the shelves, Fishman said.

Then, at a later time, the men would take the original product they purchased and return it to the store to receive cash, credit, or store credit. They would also return the stolen product and receive store credit, Fishman said.

In doing so, the men caused Home Depot to lose a total of $257,462.95 over the course of about 28 months, Fishman said. The scheme was performed in stores across New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania.