Muskogee Resident Sentenced To 18 Months For Mail Fraud, $560,000 Restitution

MUSKOGEE, OKLAHOMA – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma announced that Kenneth Gene Morgan a/k/a Kenny Morgan, age 44, of Muskogee, Oklahoma was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment and 3 years’ supervised release for Mail Fraud, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1341 and Tax Fraud, in violation of Title 26, United States Code, Section 7206(1). Morgan was also ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $442,883.66 to Direct Traffic Control, Inc. and restitution in the amount of $119,467.87 to the Internal Revenue Service. The charges arose from an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service.

The Information to which Morgan entered a guilty plea alleged in Count One that from August 15, 2016 through on or about March 22, 2017, in the Eastern District of Oklahoma and elsewhere, Morgan devised a scheme to defraud Direct Traffic Control, Inc. by diverting insurance claim funds received by Direct Traffic Control, Inc. through the U.S. Mail into his personal bank account. Specifically, on February 15, 2017, Morgan knowingly took and received from an authorized depository for mail an envelope, containing a check in the amount of $303,619.55, addressed to Direct Traffic Control, Inc. and Kenny Morgan.

The Information further alleged that on or about April 15, 2018, in the Eastern District of Oklahoma and elsewhere, the defendant, willfully made and subscribed a false 2017 Form 1040, U.S. Individual Income Tax Return, which contained and was verified by a written declaration that it was made under the penalties of perjury, and which he did not believe to be true and correct as to every material matter, in that he knowingly reported Adjusted Gross Income of $176,564.00, whereas, he then and there knew that the Adjusted Gross Income failed to report approximately $208,563.35 of income.

Morgan was ordered to surrender to the United States Bureau of Prisons by noon on May 1, 2021 to begin serving his sentence of imprisonment at a facility to be designated by BOP.

The Honorable David C. Joseph, U.S. District Judge from the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, who is temporarily assigned to the Eastern District of Oklahoma, presided over the sentencing hearing. Assistant United States Attorney Douglas Horn represented the United States.