'Inside Girls' Key To Pilot Fraud Conspiracy: Report

CHATTANOOGA, TN — The key to the $92 million fraud scheme that Pilot Flying J’s board of directors has admitted executives and high level employees carried out would have been impossible without a group known as “the inside girls.” Yet two of those women testified Monday that they didn’t take action on their own in the scheme. Instead they did as they were told, trusting that their bosses would never tell them to do anything illegal.

Katy Bibee testified Monday in the federal trial of four former Pilot Flying J employees accused of conspiracy. This young mother felt queasy about lying to trucking companies and ripping them off, but the Knoxville News Sentinel reported that she testified Monday she still struggles with labeling it a crime.

“This was Pilot,” Bibee testified. “I trusted the people that worked there 20-plus years … for a company I was so proud to work for … We were free to do any charitable events during work hours … I feel like I was somewhat brainwashed thinking these things were OK.”

Fourteen staffers and executives have pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud – the same accusations for which former Pilot Flying J president Mark Hazelwood, former vice president of sales Scott Wombold, and ex-regional account representatives Heather Jones and Karen Mann are now standing trial. Bibee, 36, was among the last to join the list of 14 former Pilot Flying J staffers.

The male salesmen and sales executives worked on the road meeting face-to-face with trucking company owners in an effort to get them to commit to buying diesel exclusively at Pilot Flying J truck stops. They used email to stay in contact with their support staff, leaving a trail that the prosecutors are using to prove the conspiracy.

Bibee said it was the salesmen and sales executives who racked up big bucks in the fraud. The support staff cut was often as low as $10. The bosses decided who to defraud. But she and Radford testified it was the “inside girls” who entered the fraudulent rebate amounts into the computer system at Pilot Flying J and were sometimes called upon to lie to trucking company owners.

The family of Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam is majority owner of Knoxville-based Pilot Flying J. The company was founded by Bill Haslam's father, Jim Haslam. The current CEO is the governor's brother, Jimmy Haslam, who is also the majority owner of the Cleveland Browns.

See more from the News Sentinel here and here.

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