3 plead guilty in Phila. Sheriff’s Office check scheme

Three Philadelphia men acknowledged their roles Monday in a fraudulent check scheme that drained more than $400,000 from the city Sheriff's Office, with one of the sheriff's internal auditors allegedly in charge.

Robert Rogers, Reginald Berry, and Jackiem Wright pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to one count of wire fraud for accepting and cashing some of the bogus checks, made out to three individuals and three companies, according to a plea memorandum filed by federal prosecutors Sarah L. Grieb and Christopher Divinyn.

The three men made sworn statements in court Monday that they had shared the proceeds with Richard Bell, an internal accounting auditor inside the Sheriff's Office, who cut the checks.

Bell, a six-year, $42,000-a-year employee, was fired six weeks ago when the U.S. attorney formally charged him. He is scheduled to enter a plea in the case next week.

U.S. District Judge Legrome D. Davis scheduled sentencing hearings in April for Rogers, Wright, and Berry.

Federal sentencing guidelines suggest from 27 to 33 months in prison for Rogers, 35, who admitted cashing checks worth about $10,000 and distributing the rest of the checks to individuals he recruited for the scam.

Wright and Berry, both 29, admitted depositing two checks in their business account, securing $36,466 from one check and attempting to withdraw the proceeds of a second check, for $111,089. They collected $3,000, but the Bank of America then became suspicious, contacted the Sheriff's Office, and froze the remaining proceeds.

Sentencing guidelines call for 15 to 21 months imprisonment for Wright and Berry, and their plea agreements call for them to return the $39,466 they pocketed in the scam.

The plea memorandum prepared by prosecutors alleged that Bell and Rogers had cooperated in the scam from 2006 to 2010, with Bell writing two early checks to Rogers for about $10,000 in 2006 or 2007.

The scam accelerated in mid-2009, according to the prosecutors' chronology, with a series of eight checks totaling $418,325, written between June 2009 and February 2010.

The biggest of the checks was the final one, the $111,089 payment in February 2010, eventually flagged by Bank of America. But even after the check was flagged, the Sheriff's Office apparently was unable to link Bell to the creation of the check.

Barbara Deeley, who was acting sheriff in 2011, said the office was unaware of Bell's involvement until the U. S. Attorney's Office named him in a criminal information Nov. 30.