Final Defendant in Telemarketing Scheme Sentenced for Defrauding Elderly Victims

     PHOENIX, Ariz. – On January 13, 2020, Trevor Wesley Gabler, 29, of Phoenix, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Steven P. Logan to 54 months’ imprisonment. Gabler previously pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud in connection with telemarketing.  Four other defendants pleaded guilty and were previously sentenced, including: Brandon Trevor Ball, 47, of Phoenix, to 60 months’ imprisonment; Jackie Nikiel Whitley, 38, of Phoenix, to 30 months’ imprisonment; Brian Lee Gibson, 37, of Mesa, to 15 months’ imprisonment; and Gordon Lynn Hardy, 57, of Chandler, to a time-served sentence of approximately one year.

     Gabler and Ball managed the telemarketing scheme, which operated from 2015 to 2018 out of several office park locations in Phoenix and Tempe.  They communicated via telephone with elderly consumers, first from a front room, where employees used false names to obtain basic customer information, and then from a back room, where telemarketers also used false names and promised a sham business opportunity in exchange for more than $10,000 per victim.  The opportunities promised to the victims were never fulfilled.                

     The defendants were ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $4,116,625 to 113 victims from around the country, most of whom were over the age of 65.  District Judge Logan also ordered the forfeiture of $78,953 in U.S. currency found during a search Ball’s residence. That money will be applied toward restitution.

     The investigation was conducted by the United States Secret Service and the Phoenix Police Department, with assistance from the United States Postal Inspection Service and the Special Investigations Section of the Arizona Attorney General’s Office. The prosecution was handled by Gary M. Restaino, Alanna R. Kennedy, and Mark Wenker, Assistant U.S. Attorneys, District of Arizona, Phoenix.