5TH Florida Man Pleads Guilty In Connection With $20 Million Fraud Against Xerox Corporation

CONTACT: Barbara Burns
PHONE: (716) 843-5817
FAX #: (716) 551-3051

ROCHESTER, N.Y.- U.S. Attorney James P. Kennedy, Jr. announced today that Robert Fisher of Daytona, Florida pled guilty in front of the Honorable Elizabeth Wolford in connection with a 63-count indictment that was returned against him on April 3, 2018, involving a scheme to defraud Xerox Corporation of more than $20 million.  Fisher pled guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, which charge carries a maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine.  Previously, Kyle Haynes, Jason Haynes, David Haynes (the “Hayneses”) and Bryan Day pleaded guilty to similar charges.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard A. Resnick, who is handling the case, stated that Fisher’s company, RBM Imaging, was an authorized reseller of Xerox office equipment.  Kyle Haynes, Jason Haynes, David Haynes and Bryan Day own Haynes Brother Furniture in Daytona.

Xerox is located in, among other places, Webster, New York, and sells and leases office equipment, including printers directly to end-user customers or to authorized resellers, like Fisher, who then resell or lease the office equipment to end-user customers. The office equipment requires toner and other products to operate. End-user customers order the toner for their printers from Xerox.  Rather than pay Xerox upfront for the toner, the end-user customers pay Xerox based on the number of prints made with the toner. However, at all times, the toner belongs to Xerox until consumed by the end-user customers.  At no time may the end-user customers sell the toner.

Those defendants who previously pled guilty admitted that they set up a sham company, HDH Graphics, to obtain approximately sixty-three Xerox printers from Fisher.  Although HDH Graphics made few, if any, prints with the printers, the defendants fraudulently represented to Xerox that HDH Graphics was making prints using much more toner than the industry average, which deceived Xerox into shipping approximately $25 million worth of toner to HDH Graphics. The Hayneses and Day then sold the fraudulently obtained toner for approximately $11 million to an individual in Miami, Florida, and together with Fisher, they shared the profits from the fraudulent sale of the Xerox toner.

In executing the scheme, the Hayneses and Day repeatedly misrepresented to Xerox that they were making millions of prints with the toner, even though they never took most of the printers out of their boxes.  They provided Xerox with false usage profiles from the printers and false print samples that made it appear that they were making millions of prints and using much more toner than the industry average for each print.     

In his plea agreement, Fisher also agreed to pay the Internal Revenue Service the amount of $192,495.42, plus interest and penalties in connection with false tax returns he filed for the years 2008 through 2013.  Fisher also agreed to forfeiture of assets that were previously seized by the government.  

This plea was the result of an investigation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations, Buffalo Office, under the direction of Special Agent-in-Charge Kevin Kelly;  and the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation Division, under the direction of James Robnett, Special Agent-in-Charge, New York Field Office.

Fisher’s next court appearance is on May 2, 2019, at 9:30 am. 

# # # #