Business owners sentenced for defrauding Tracker Marine

The owners of a Lebanon trucking company were sentenced in federal court yesterday for their roles in an $800,000 conspiracy to defraud Tracker Marine LLC, the Bass Pro Shops-owned manufacturer of boats and trailers.

J&M Trucking Inc. owners James Ivey, 53, and his wife, Melinda, 43, both of Lebanon, were sentenced May 10 to jail time and joint restitution of $797,325. James Ivey was sentenced to five years and 10 months in federal prison without parole, and Melinda Ivey received a sentence of two years and six months in prison without parole, according to a news release from the office of Tammy Dickinson, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri.

The Iveys were convicted in August of working with co-defendant Paul Hunting, 40, of Paso Robles, Calif., to defraud Tracker Marine from January 2006 to April 2009, by inflating purchase orders and shipping invoices. Hunting, a former transportation manager for Tracker Marine, was sentenced to one year and one day in prison and ordered to pay $294,496 in restitution.

The Iveys and Hunting were found to have caused more than 2,550 fraudulent invoices to be submitted to Tracker Marine, creating a loss of at least $797,325 for the manufacturer.

J&M had been contracted to transport boats and trailers to Tracker Marine dealer locations throughout North America. The company's compensation was determined largely by the distance its trucks traveled. Hunting was convicted of causing Tracker Marine to submit payments to J&M exceeding the contract amount by listing an inflated and false number of billable miles on purchase orders. For his help, James Ivey paid  Hunting a portion of the revenue from the fraud scheme - amounting to $265,775 from 2006 to 2008, the release said.

Beginning in April 2006, Ivey and Hunting set 158 miles as the amount Hunting would add to each purchase order, and the three co-defendants split the proceeds.

In addition, James and Melinda Ivey were found guilty of money laundering related to the cash payments to Hunting, typically made in a parking lot in Lebanon. The Iveys claimed the payments represented revenues generated by two trucks they said Hunting owned and leased to J&M, which also was false, according to the release.

The Iveys also were convicted together in nine counts of wire fraud; one count each of making false statements to federal agents; and James Ivey was convicted of an additional 10 counts of wire fraud.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Mohlhenrich and was investigated by the FBI and Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation.[[In-content Ad]]