Former Senate Staffer Sentenced to 3 Years for Defrauding Three Women

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Robert Lee Foster, a former staff member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, was sentenced today to 38 months in prison for a wire fraud scheme in which he defrauded three women of approximately $500,000. Foster was also ordered to forfeit $499,622.54 and pay $503,003.37 in restitution as part of his sentence.

Foster, 65, formerly of Falls Church, pleaded guilty on July 31, 2015. According to court documents, between 2008 and May 2015, Foster devised a scheme to fraudulently obtain approximately $500,000 from three women, whom he targeted because of their age, health, marital or family status, and other circumstances. To perpetuate the scheme, Foster gained the victims’ trust and confidence, after which he made various false statements to the victims to convince them to send him money.  Among other things, Foster told his victims he needed to borrow money to pay for litigation costs, business expenses, and foreign travel, and that he would repay them from large sums of money he claimed he was about to receive.  Foster’s statements were lies: he had no such costs or expenses, he did not even have a valid passport for much of the relevant period, and he was never “about” to receive any large sum of money. Foster spent the money he obtained from the three women for his own personal use and benefit, including more than $44,000 on golf-related expenses and tens of thousands in dining and clothing expenses. Foster received at least 10 separate wire transfers totaling $9,446.02 from Person A, a 61 year-old woman; 159 separate wire transfers totaling $461,676.52 from Person B, a 75 year-old woman; and 19 separate wire transfers totaling $28,500 from Person C, a 77 year-old woman. 

Dana J. Boente, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia; Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; and Paul M. Abbate, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’S Washington Field Office, made the announcement after sentencing by U.S. District Judge T. S. Ellis, III.  Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jamar Walker and Ryan Faulconer, and Trial Attorneys Peter Halpern and Kevin Driscoll of the Public Integrity Section in the Justice Department’s Criminal Division prosecuted the case.

A copy of this press release may be found on the website of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.  Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia or on PACER by searching for Case No. 1:15-cr-148.

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