When someone is incarcerated, the last thing we expect for them to be able to do is run a scam in the outside world, let alone a profitable one, but one inmate, 41-year-old Jared Borgesto Murray has proven everyone wrong by managing to pull off a massive scam that cost a major business more than $1.2 million and all of that from the inside of his Florida state prison cell.
Murray, originally from St. Petersburg was already in prison for robbery when he came up with the idea to use his skills from the inside to earn some extra money. And he managed to do an excellent job, as his elaborate fraud scheme was profitable enough for him to manage to build himself a house with the stolen funds.
The Florida prison scam that shocked the world
Murray was an ambitious criminal and managed to go undetected in his scams for nearly two years, from January 2019 through September 2020, while locked up in Pinellas County. According to what the prosecutors said he used contraband phones smuggled into the prison to run the operation, which centered around pretending to be customers of a well-known retail business.
The company that he scammed was not named in the federal release that detailed the conviction, but court documents revealed that Murray was ordered to pay $1,269,495.89 in restitution to Lowe’s Hardware Store, clearing up who was the injured party. The scam was simple but efficient and profitable, using fake identities, he contacted multiple store locations, racking up purchases on real customers’ open lines of credit and those items were then sold online at discounted prices, allowing him and others allegedly involved to pocket over a million dollars. The lines of credit were, of course, never paid off.
He was not working alone, as he needed people on the ground both in and out of the prison to help him pick up merchandise from eh stores and resell it online as well as get phones in to manage the operation. When the discounted merchandise was delivered to buyers, these paid through wire transfers and mailed checks, making the process even more untraceable for the authorities.
Not all funds were recovered in Murray’s bank account, some of the money went into building a house in Lake Placid, which is roughly 105 miles southeast of his hometown. The property, along with $43,550 from his bank accounts, has since been seized and the assets used to repay Lowes for their losses.
Murray did not get out of this unscathed, although we still do not know what happened to his accomplices. He has been further sentenced to a four-year, nine-month federal prison sentence after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud.
His attorneys, Summer Rae Goldman and Maribeth L. Wetzel of Goldman Wetzel PLLC, represented him throughout the case. Goldman later said in an emailed statement to McClatchy News, “This was an especially unique case, and Mr. Murray accepted responsibility.”
But, ahead of his sentencing, defense attorney Wetzel filed a memo painting him as someone with untapped potential. She wrote, “This is an unusual case — one that leaves observers remarking, ‘If only Mr. Murray had applied his talents to legitimate business, imagine how far he could have gone.’” She described his effort to build a house while incarcerated as “an extraordinary testament to his resourcefulness, drive, and potential for rehabilitation.” Despite her request for a lighter sentence, U.S. District Judge Steven D. Merryday stuck close to sentencing guidelines and handed down nearly five years. In the memo, Wetzel didn’t sugarcoat the situation but tried to give context, calling the case a “story of misguided talent, missed opportunities, and systemic neglect.”