PORTLAND, Maine — A California man was sentenced Tuesday in U.S. District Court to 13 months in federal prison for his role in a scheme to use nearly 40 fake or altered credit, debit and gift cards to buy merchandise in southern Maine in 2013 and 2014.
In addition to prison time, Jervis A. Hillaire, 26, of Menifee, California, was sentenced to three years of supervised release, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. Hillaire also was ordered to pay nearly $18,000 in restitution.
Hillaire pleaded guilty Jan. 29 to one count of conspiracy to commit access device fraud, according to information on the court’s electronic case filing system. Five other counts were dismissed at sentencing.
A sentencing date for his co-defendant, Gyadeen Ramdihall, 28, of Rosedale, N.Y., has not been set. He pleaded guilty to the same charge on the same day that Hillaire did.
Hillaire has been in custody since last fall when he violated his bail conditions, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Halsey Frank, who prosecuted the case. Ramdihall remains free on $5,000 unsecured bail with a home confinement condition.
The duo first came to the attention of Maine law enforcement on Sept. 5, 2013, when a clerk at a Kittery convenience store reported Hillaire and a woman, who has not been charged, “were using multiple gift cards to purchase different gift cards, each for several hundred dollars,” according to the complaint. “If a card was declined [the woman] and Hillaire would reduce the amount of the requested gift card and try again.”
Kittery police seized 38 counterfeit credit cards and several thousand dollars in electronics and gift cards from the rental car in which the woman, Hillaire and Ramdihall were traveling, the complaint said. The trio was not charged at the time.
The cards also were used on Sept. 5, 2013, to purchase more than $1,700 in merchandise from Best Buy in Topsham and nearly $3,200 in electronics from the Apple store in South Portland.
The duo returned to Maine and were arrested in late January 2014 after using four differents cards at a Biddeford Walmart to buy a $300 gift card, a different credit card to buy more than $95 in baby formula and sundries, and three different cards to purchase two iPod Touch devices for more than $300 each, according to court documents.
The maximum sentence on the conspiracy charge the men pleaded guilty to is five years. The maximum fine is $250,000.