United States Attorney Richard B. Roper
Northern District of Texas

FORMER AMERICAN EAGLE AIRLINE EMPLOYEES SENTENCED
TO FEDERAL PRISON FOR COUNTERFEITING TRAVEL VOUCHERS

FORT WORTH, Tx. — This morning in federal court in Fort Worth, U.S. District Judge John McBryde sentenced Ken Lamont Kirby, a former American Eagle Airline employee who defrauded American Airlines by selling counterfeit travel vouchers, announced U.S. Attorney Richard B. Roper. Kirby, 34, a resident of Plano, was sentenced to 15 months in prison and ordered to pay $23,700 restitution. Kirby’s co-defendant, Edward C. Ivory, Jr., 30, of Chicago, Illinois, was sentenced last month to 37 months in prison and ordered to pay $55,144 restitution. Both men pled guilty to a one-count indictment charging wire fraud and aiding and abetting. Ivory was ordered to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons on July 6, 2007 and Kirby was ordered to surrender on August 3, 2007.

According to documents filed in the case, from July 2005 until November 2005, Ivory and Kirby were employees of American Eagle Airlines, an affiliate of American Airlines. During that time they devised a scheme to defraud American Airlines by secretly using American Airlines’ computer system to print counterfeit Transportation Vouchers, which they then sold to various “customers,” generally for fifty percent of face value. Ivory and Kirby also issued airline tickets to their customers and allowed their customers to use the counterfeit Transportation Vouchers to pay for those tickets.

Kirby’s role in scheme consisted mainly of marketing the counterfeit vouchers to customers. He knew the vouchers were counterfeit, and he knew how they were created, but he usually relied on Ivory to print the vouchers.

U.S. Attorney Roper praised the investigative efforts of the U.S. Secret Service as well as the cooperation and investigative efforts of American Airlines. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Alan Buie.

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