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Camden, NJ - The United States of America charged Robert S. Armstrong with fraud.



A Gloucester County, New Jersey, man was sentenced today to 65 months in prison for mailing thousands of fraudulent invoices to hospitals, clinics and doctors’ offices throughout the United States, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito announced.



Robert S. Armstrong, 49, of Turnersville, New Jersey, previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Noel L. Hillman in Camden federal court to an information charging him with one count of mail fraud. Judge Hillman imposed the sentence today.



This is Armstrong’s second mail fraud scheme. On Nov. 19, 2015, Armstrong was sentenced to 57 months in prison for committing a similar mail fraud scheme in the name of his company, Scholastic Book Supply. In that case, Armstrong caused the mailing of thousands of fraudulent invoices to schools throughout the United States billing them for books that the schools did not order or receive. He was sentenced today to 41 months on the Pinnacle Medical Supply case, which was committed while he was on supervised release for the Scholastic Book Supply case. He pleaded guilty to three violations of his supervised release from prison in the Scholastic Book Supply case, and was sentenced to an additional 24 months in prison, for a total prison sentence imposed today of 65 months.



According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:



Operating under the name of Pinnacle Medical Supplies, Armstrong prepared and caused to be prepared fraudulent invoices billing hospitals, clinics and doctors’ offices across the United States for medical supplies such as diabetic test strips, EpiPens® and sanitizing wipes that the medical providers never ordered or received. In addition to billing for medical supplies never ordered or received, the invoices included fraudulent shipping information and a fraudulent address.



Armstrong then contracted with a legitimate bulk mailing company to mail more than 10,000 invoices to medical providers across the United States. Each invoice included a payment envelope preaddressed to Pinnacle Medical Supply at mail boxes Armstrong had set up with commercial mail receiving agents in Florida and Texas.



In response to the phony invoices, at least 943 medical providers sent $214,495 to Pinnacle Medical Supply. Armstrong deposited many of the checks from the victim medical providers into a bank account he opened in the name of Pinnacle Medical Supply.



In addition to the prison term, Judge Hillman sentenced Armstrong to an additional three years of supervised release and ordered him to pay full restitution.



U.S. Attorney Carpenito credited law enforcement officers of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, under the direction of Inspector in Charge Damon Wood in Philadelphia, with the investigation leading to today’s sentencing. He also thanked the Washington Township Police Department in Gloucester County, the Woolwich Township Police Department and the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB).



The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Diana Carrig of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Camden.



In Violation of 18 USC 1341 - FRAUDS AND SWINDLES



Whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, or to sell, dispose of, loan, exchange, alter, give away, distribute, supply, or furnish or procure for unlawful use any counterfeit or spurious coin, obligation, security, or other article, or anything represented to be or intimated or held out to be such counterfeit or spurious article, for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice or attempting so to do, places in any post office or authorized depository for mail matter, any matter or thing whatever to be sent or delivered by the Postal Service, or deposits or causes to be deposited any matter or thing whatever to be sent or delivered by any private or commercial interstate carrier, or takes or receives therefrom, any such matter or thing, or knowingly causes to be delivered by mail or such carrier according to the direction thereon, or at the place at which it is directed to be delivered by the person to whom it is addressed, any such matter or thing, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both. If the violation occurs in relation to, or involving any benefit authorized, transported, transmitted, transferred, disbursed, or paid in connection with, a presidentially declared major disaster or emergency (as those terms are defined in section 102 of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 5122)), or affects a financial institution, such person shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned not more than 30 years, or both.

Defendant was sentenced to 65 months in prison.