Florissant Man Accused of Stealing Over $250,000 from Grocery Chain

ST. LOUIS – A Florissant man who has been accused him of stealing more than $250,000 from a grocery chain was arrested Wednesday.

Richard Lind, 39, of Florissant, was indicted with five counts of wire fraud on April 22. He appeared in court Wednesday and pleaded not guilty.

The indictment says Lind worked as the site manager for a logistics company at the grocer’s distribution center. Lind’s employer supplied the physical labor and heavy equipment to unload trailers containing the grocer’s inventory, as well as software for tracking shipments.

Lind defrauded the grocery chain by creating false records for inventory shipments that had never occurred and false invoices seeking payment from the trucking companies for unloading those shipments, the indictment says. The trucking companies then sought reimbursement from the grocery chain. Lind voided the false records to conceal his scheme from his employer. He used the electronic payment authorization codes that resulted from his scheme to obtain cash payments at truck stops, triggering more than 600 fraudulent payments totaling more than $250,000, the indictment says.

Charges set forth in the indictment are merely accusations and do not constitute proof of guilt.  Every defendant is presumed to be innocent unless and until proven guilty.

The FBI investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Gwen Carroll is prosecuting the case.