James T. Jacks
Acting United States Attorney
Northern District of Texas

VIRGINIA MAN, WHO WAS ON THE LAM FOR SEVEN YEARS,
SENTENCED TO 24 MONTHS IN FEDERAL PRISON FOR MAIL FRAUD

LUBBOCK, Texas — Daniel Hunter Fletcher, 40, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Sam R. Cummings to 24 months in prison and ordered to pay a $10,000.00 fine, following his guilty plea in December to one count of mail fraud, announced acting U.S. Attorney James T. Jacks of the Northern District of Texas. Fletcher has been in custody since he surrendered to federal authorities in Lubbock in November 2008, on charges in an indictment returned by a federal grand jury in August 2001 charging him with various offenses related to a scheme he ran in which he submitted fraudulent bills for telephone calls that were never made.

Fletcher operated a company named “Phone Calls, Inc.,” with an address of 3220 N Street, NW, Suite 100, Washington, DC 20007, that provided long distance telephone service to numerous customers in the U.S. From February 1996 through December 1996, he ran a scheme to defraud individuals and Southwestern Bell Telephone Company (Southwestern Bell). He caused a database to be created that contained the names, addresses, telephone numbers, and long distance billing amounts of numerous people throughout the multi-state sales area of Southwestern Bell and provided this database to an individual who converted the information to a format required by Southwestern Bell for billing purposes. Using this database, Fletcher deceived Southwestern Bell into sending bills to its telephone customers, that included charges for calls fraudulently submitted by Phone Calls, Inc., for billing together with legitimate Southwestern Bell phone services.

Fletcher sold fraudulent billings for long distance calls supposedly made through Phone Calls, Inc., to Southwestern Bell, and negotiated checks received from Southwestern Bell for Phone Calls, Inc. long distance fees billed to Southwestern Bell customers. Long distance billing information provided to Southwestern Bell falsely represented that actual long distance telephone calls had been placed by individuals throughout the Southwestern Bell billing area, as reflected on the database submitted by Phone Calls, Inc., for billing by Southwestern Bell. Fletcher also falsely represented that he was entitled to receive all of the long distance telephone fees billed to customers by Southwestern Bell on behalf of Phone Calls, Inc.

The case was investigated by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven M. Sucsy of the Lubbock, Texas, U.S. Attorney’s office.

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