Omaha Man Sentenced for Wire Fraud

United States Attorney Susan Lehr announced that Eric Everroad, 53, of Omaha, NE, was sentenced on June 24, 2024, in federal court in Omaha for wire fraud. Chief United States District Court Judge Robert F. Rossiter, Jr. sentenced Everroad to 12 months and 1 day imprisonment. There is no parole in the federal system. After Everroad’s release from prison, he will begin a 3-year term of supervised release. As part of his sentence, Everroad was ordered to pay Menards $478,674.94 in restitution.

From December of 2006 until September 22, 2022, Everroad was an employee of Menards and was employed at the location at 708 N 120^th Street in Omaha, Nebraska location as the Building Materials Manager.

Beginning in 2017, Everroad devised and carried out a scheme in which he allowed a contractor to make purchases from Menards using wrongfully obtained store credits. In doing so, Everroad created false returns to generate store credits. Everroad also allowed for the contractor to make purchases using other customers legitimate store credit. The contractor would then pay Everroad directly using cash or checks for the goods that were wrongfully obtained from Menards. As a result of this scheme, Everroad received $478,674.94 from the contractor between March 28, 2017, and September 14, 2022. Everroad was confronted by loss prevention officers with Menards and admitted that he was generating false returns to create store credits that the contractor used to make purchases or allowed the contractor to make purchases on other customer’s credits. Everroad admitted to the contractor paying him directly. 

The owners of the contractor involved were interviewed and confirmed this arrangement with Everroad. The contractor explained that they received a benefit in doing so because Everroad allowed for them to pay for the materials after the job was completed which assisted with the business’s cash flow.

As part of this scheme, Everroad would deposit the checks from the contractor in his personal checking account at Centris Federal Credit Union. This caused Centris Federal Credit Union to electronically transmit, images of the checks by means of wire communication in interstate commerce from Nebraska to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, which is located in the state of Georgia.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.