Sentencing continued for former Pacific man convicted of identity theft in scheme

Published 2:51 pm Thursday, October 16, 2014

Sentencing has been continued for a former Pacific man convicted of 16 counts of identity theft and one count of conspiracy to commit first degree identity theft for “skimming” diesel fuel credit cards.

Vinod Ram’s sentencing is at 1 p.m., Oct. 31 before Judge Carol Schapira at the King County Courthouse in Seattle.

Although Ram, 48, faces a standard sentence range of five to seven years, prosecutors will recommend an exceptional sentence of eight years and four months based on the aggravating factor that the jury determined that each of the 16 counts constituted a major economic offense.

Ram’s scheme centered on fuel credit cards belonging to commercial trucking companies.

Two co-defendants, Damiun Prasad of Pacific and Manny Chuks of Auburn, have pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree identity theft and one count of conspiracy to commit identity theft first degree. Prosecutors will recommend nine months of jail — work release — because each co-defendant testified at trial, neither has any prior felony convictions and they did not organize the scheme or profit from it.

Ram stole diesel fuel using illegally-cloned fuel account cards that he gave to his co-conspirators. He then called up short-haul truckers and had his co-conspirators fill up the trucks at fueling stations in exchange for cash.

Detectives connected more than 1,000 fraudulent credit card transactions to Ram, who also had a credit card scanning device and a large amount of cash when the Washington State Patrol searched his home in 2012.

Total losses to the companies and their credit card companies exceeded $582,000 over the 12 months the fraud was occurring.