US toy seller caught fraudulently using Sir Peter Jackson’s credit card
By ANIFriday, January 28, 2011
WELLINGTON - An toy salesman from the US has been caught fraudulently using Sir Peter Jackson’s credit card, spending nearly a quarter of a million dollars.
Jackson used his American Express card in 2007 to buy items from the Michigan Toy Soldier Company, which specialises in historical miniature models of collectable soldiers and other figurines.
American newspaper The Daily Tribune reported that the owner Richard Berry, who is based in Royal Oak in Michigan, could be jailed for up to 18 months when sentenced on February 7. He had a similar conviction for credit fraud in 1993.
Berry’s lawyer David Steingold said he made the fraudulent credit card charges, worth US190,000 dollars (NZ 246,000 dollars), after Jackson bought items online because his company, which he founded in 1990, was in financial trouble.
“He needed inventory and used the credit card and hoped to repay the money when sales picked up,” Stuff.co.nz quoted Steingold as saying.
“Things got out of hand because the economy didn’t turn around.”
In 2008, Berry admitted what he did when he was contacted by American Express. He admitted fraudulently billing to Jackson’s card when contacted by federal authorities.
“He wanted to confess to the wrongdoing and is contrite and on the road to making it right,” Steingold added. (ANI)
