James Charlton Davis III, 57, of Anderson, SC, pleaded guilty March 8, to wire fraud in U.S. Federal District Court in Greenbelt, MD. According to his plea agreement, Anderson was the director of the electrical division for a Landover, MD electrical firm from May 7, 2012, to March 13, 2013. When applying for his job, Davis said he had earned a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but he had not attended. Part of his duties was to develop new business for the company.
Davis falsely told company executives that he knew executives at several corporate entities, and that he was pursuing contracts with the businesses. Davis created and falsely registered online domain names that closely resembled legitimate domain names associated with several of the firms.
Prosecutors say Davis used these fake domains to send emails to himself and others at his employer to legitimize the fictional contracts he claimed to obtain.
In July 2012, Davis told his employer that he had procured contracts with a technology company in San Jose, CA, to build cell towers in Alpharetta, GA. Davis communicated with himself via email using the stolen identity of an individual, in connection with fictitious contracts with the tech company, and with other corporate entities about upgrades to their data centers. According to a statement released by the U.S. Attorney’s office, Davis represented that he was working with this individual to perform these contracts. For several of the contracts, Davis sent communications to himself and/or others at his employer, or caused others at his employer’s company to send emails to various personas he had created—some of whom appear to refer to actual employees of the corporate entities with whom Davis claimed to be negotiating contracts.
Davis has agreed to forfeit and pay restitution of $240,000, the minimum amount of loss to his employer.
If the court accepts the plea agreement, Davis will be sentenced to between 57 months and seven years in prison. U.S. District Judge Theodore D. Chuang has scheduled sentencing for June 2, at 2 p.m.
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