A man who participated in a scheme to promote and sell tickets to a non-existent concert purportedly to be held in Dubuque pled guilty today in federal court in Cedar Rapids.

Scott Elkins, 38, from Tampa, Florida, was convicted of one count of mail fraud.

In a plea agreement, Elkins admitted that he and others devised a scheme to defraud potential concert-goers by promoting and selling tickets to a concert that they knew would not occur. They mailed a package containing flyers, tickets, and money orders related to the purported concert from outside the State of Iowa to a radio station in Dubuque. Elkins had previously been involved in setting up similar fake concerts in Indiana, Alabama, New Mexico, North Dakota, Texas, and Athens, Ohio.

Sentencing before United States District Court Chief Judge Linda R. Reade will be set after a presentence report is prepared. Elkins remains in custody of the United States Marshal pending sentencing. Elkins faces a possible maximum sentence of 20 years’ imprisonment, a fine of $250,000, a $100 special assessment, and 3 years of supervised release following any imprisonment.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Sean Berry and was investigated by the Dubuque County Sheriff’s Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Court file information is available at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl. The case file number is CR 11-1002.

 

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