St. Louis Man Convicted of $200,000 Kohl’s Cash Scam

ST. LOUIS – A jury in U.S. District Court in St. Louis on Tuesday convicted a St. Louis man of all of the charges he faced for stealing more than $200,000 worth of online merchandise from Kohl’s.

According to evidence and testimony at the trial, Marshall Lampkin, 35, devised a scheme to use “Kohl’s Cash” twice. First, Lampkin would use Kohl’s Cash to purchase merchandise in a Kohl’s store, generally for more than $1,000. He then immediately used the same Kohl’s Cash to order merchandise online, knowing that the in-person transaction had not yet registered. Lampkin then returned the items he purchased in the store for a refund in Kohl’s Cash, so he could repeat his scam, evidence and testimony showed. Lampkin used the scheme more than 100 times in 2021 and 2022, at 40 different stores in 13 states, the trial showed.

He had his online purchases, which included flooring, furniture, small appliances and other items, shipped to storage units in St. Louis and a relative’s house in Illinois, evidence and testimony showed. He later sold or tried to sell those items by advertising them on Facebook.
 

Investigators also recovered hundreds of thousands of dollars in Kohl’s  merchandise packed into Lampkin’s storage units. 

The trial began Monday. In less than seven minutes, jurors found Lampkin guilty of five counts of mail fraud. He is scheduled to be sentenced in December.

The U.S. Secret Service and the St. Louis County Police Department investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Justin Ladendorf and Derek Wiseman are prosecuting the case.