Pair Netted Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars : 2 Sentenced for Record, Tape and Video Scam

Two Canadians were sentenced to federal prison Monday for the San Diego swap-meet sales of thousands of videotapes, compact discs, cassettes and records that prosecutors said the pair had obtained fraudulently by mail.

U.S. District Judge Rudi M. Brewster sentenced Robert Lafond, 39, also known as Robert Gilles, to a year in prison. The judge gave Micheline Nadeau, 40, a 10-month sentence.

Brewster also ordered Lafond to make more than $75,000 in restitution to various record and tape companies as well as pay $80,000 in federal income taxes and a $25,000 fine. Nadeau was ordered to make restitution of over $75,000 plus pay over $84,000 in federal taxes and a $25,000 fine.

Married While in Custody

Both Lafond and Nadeau had pleaded guilty April 3 to two counts of felony mail fraud and three misdemeanor income-tax evasion charges. The tax charges were for the years 1985, 1986 and 1987, Assistant U.S. Atty. John R. Kraemer said.

“It’s a very odd case,” said Lafond’s attorney, Knut S. Johnson, who added that he thought the sentence was “a good sentence, all in all.”

Adding to the unusual nature of the case was that Lafond and Nadeau were married in custody. They had been arrested Dec. 13 at Kobey’s Swap Meet, where prosecutors said each ran a booth selling tapes, discs and records.

“The thing that really made it unusual in my mind was that they were married in prison, and, as the case went on, they got closer and closer, despite the fact that their communication was limited,” Johnson said.

The arrests were based on charges that the pair had rented more than 70 post office boxes and private mail drops and used more than 500 fictitious names so they could order videotapes, compact discs, cassettes and records from RCA, Columbia House, Reader’s Digest and Time-Life Inc., Kraemer said.

“It was my understanding that what (Lafond) would do was go through the phone book and pick names and just rearrange them,” Johnson said.

The couple received the merchandise without paying for it, then sold it at Kobey’s Swap Meet from 1986 to 1988, Kraemer said. Their gross income from the plan was roughly $80,000 in 1986, more than $220,000 in 1987 and about $435,000 in 1988, he said.

Columbia House alone sent more than 30,000 tapes, discs and records to the pair, Kraemer said. RCA sent more than 15,000 pieces to more than 2,334 accounts the couple had set up, he said.

Alerted by Neighbor

A neighbor alerted postal inspectors to the couple last September, Kraemer said. The neighbor found about 300 pieces of mail addressed to 220 addresses in a dumpster in San Diego’s University Heights neighborhood, where Lafond and Nadeau were living, Kraemer said.

Shortly after the December arrests, postal inspectors seized the couple’s safety deposit boxes at a Hillcrest bank and found more than $321,000 in U.S. currency, $15,000 in Canadian currency, $12,000 in Canadian traveler’s checks and about $330 worth of silver bars, Kraemer said.

Brewster ordered Monday that the contents of the safe-deposit boxes be used for the restitution, taxes and fines.