A Stamford man was charged federally via a criminal complaint with operating a fraudulent scheme to obtain hundreds of computer netowrking parts from Cisco Systems, Inc., the U.S. Attorney's Office announced Wednesday afternoon.
According to Deirdre M. Daly, Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut, 40-year-old Craig A. Stanland was arrested on October 1, 2013, through the complaint was only unsealed on October 21. Stanland was released on a $100,000 bond following his arrest.
Stanland was operating a scheme for about a year in which he purchased or controlled approximately 14 service contracts for Cisco networking parts, the complaint said. He would use a number of aliases to make hundreds of false service requests to Cisco to replace reportedly defective computer networking parts, according to the complaint. Cisco would allegedly ship replacement parts to various addresses at Stanland's direction, including to his Stamford home, his wife's business in Brooklyn, NY, and two Greenwich P.O. boxes.
Though Stanland was supposed to return the defective parts to Cisco, he returned no parts or sent back third-party, off-brand parts, according to the complaint. He allegedly fraudulently received more than 400 parts through this scheme from the company. The retail value of the parts ranged from approximately $500 to $8,600.
Stanland was charged with one count of mail fraud. He faces a maximum of 20 years in prison if found guilty.
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