Harrisburg Man Sentenced To Prison For Odometer Tampering

HARRISBURG - The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that on July 10, 2024, Earnest Fry, 49, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, was sentenced to 30 months’ imprisonment by U.S. District Court Judge Christopher C. Conner following his conviction for odometer tampering and forging vehicle titles.  Judge Conner also ordered Fry to pay victims more than $47,000 in restitution, $700 in assessments, and to serve three years on supervised release following his term of imprisonment.  Fry previously pleaded guilty to the offenses.

According to United States Attorney Gerard M. Karam, just months after Fry was released from state prison for burglary and theft offenses in October 2018, and while he was on parole, he devised a scheme to purchase used cars, alter the cars’ true mileages by replacing or resetting their odometers, and then sell the vehicles online to unsuspecting customers who paid inflated prices for vehicles they might not otherwise have bought.  In addition, Fry altered or forged the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania titles to multiple vehicles that he sold by causing the titles to reflect false, lower mileages. Fry altered the odometers on at least 55 used cars that he sold and rolled back more than five million miles on the vehicles.  In some cases, Fry caused the odometers to be rolled back by nearly 200,000 miles.  Fry’s offenses not only caused victims to pay far more for the cars than they were worth, but created the risk that buyers would incur additional losses due to likely increased maintenance costs, excessive insurance premiums, and other unanticipated expenses.

The case was investigated by the U.S. Department of Transportation, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and the Pennsylvania State Police.  Assistant U.S. Attorney Christian T. Haugsby prosecuted the case.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that odometer fraud in the United States results in consumer losses of more than $1 billion annually and has established a special hotline to handle odometer fraud complaints. Individuals with information relating to odometer tampering should call (800) 424-9393, or email odometerfraud@dot.gov.

More information on odometer fraud is available on the NHTSA website, https://www.nhtsa.gov/equipment/odometer-fraud.

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