Former Pacific man sentenced to 80 months in prison for identity theft
Published 2:43 pm Wednesday, November 12, 2014
Vinod Ram skimmed diesel fuel credit cards belonging to commercial trucking companies then got cohorts to persuade truckers to fill ‘em up in exchange for cash.
And in the 12 months that passed before the law caught up with him, Ram saddled those trucking companies and their credit card companies with $582,000 in losses.
Sixteen counts of identity theft, one count of conspiracy to commit first-degree identity theft, one jury conviction and one sentencing later, the former Pacific man became an inmate of the Washington State prison system.
Judge Carol Schapira sentenced Ram to 80 months Oct. 31 at the King County Courthouse in Seattle.
Although Ram had been facing a standard sentence range of five to seven years, prosecutors recommended an exceptional sentence of eight years and four months, based on the aggravating factor of the jury’s determination that each of the 16 counts constituted a major economic offense.
Ram’s two co-defendants, Damiun Prasad of Pacific, and Manny Chuks of Auburn, had already pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree identity theft and one count of conspiracy to commit identity theft first degree. Prosecutors recommended nine months of jail — work release — because each co-defendant testified at trial, neither had 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 possessed a credit card scanning device and a large amount of cash when the Washington State Patrol searched his home in 2012.
