FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

TUESDAY - December 14, 2010

SOUTHERN SHORES MAN SENTENCED FOR FRAUDULENT SCHEME

GREENVILLE - United States Attorney George E.B. Holding announced that in federal court yesterday Senior United States District Judge Malcolm J. Howard sentenced ANTHONY JOSEPH CUNDIFF, 20, of Southern Shores, North Carolina, to 37 months’ imprisonment followed by five years supervised release. The Court also ordered him to pay $14,994.33.

A Federal Grand Jury returned a Criminal Indictment on February 19, 2009. On January 8, 2010, CUNDIFF pled guilty to bank fraud, mail fraud and access device fraud.

In 2005, CUNDIFF created a website, live-wire.net, to sell computer software and merchandise. CUNDIFF used this website to defraud victims who ordered products from the website. Once a customer ordered with live-wire.net, they either received a fraudulent copy of the software or they did not receive the product. CUNDIFF would then use the customer/victim credit card information he had received with their order without their authorization to purchase other merchandise.

When the victim-customer would contact live-wire.net for a refund, they were directed to a link for a sub-page on live-wire.net’s site. The sub-page was a form that requested the victim-customer credit and personal information. The information would then be used by CUNDIFF to make more purchases with the victim-customer credit card.Investigation of this case was conducted by the United States Secret Service and the Kitty Hawk Police Department. Assistant United States Attorney Felice McConnell Corpening represented the government.

News releases are available on the U. S. Attorney’s web page at www.usdoj.gov/usao/nce within 48 hours of release.