Defendant Ordered to Pay Back $939,000 in Kickback Scheme

KANSAS CITY, KS—An Overland Park man has been sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison and ordered to pay more than $939,000 in restitution for taking kickbacks from freight carriers.

Charles Welty, 53, pleaded guilty to one count of interstate transportation of money acquired by fraud. In his plea, Welty admitted he committed the crime from Oct 2000 through March 2006, while he was working as logistics manager for Sunflower Group, a company in Overland Park, Kan., that sold promotional services to build brand awareness to clients across the country. Welty’s job included hiring third-party freight carriers. He devised a scheme to extract kickbacks from third-party freight carriers in return for directing Sunflower’s business to the carrier. As part of the scheme he directed Sunflower’s freight business to Pinpoint Logistics in Coral Springs, Fla., which operated as a freight broker. At Welty’s direction, Pinpoint provided inflated invoices to Sunflower for freight costs and paid kickbacks to Welty.

Grissom commended the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Rask for their work on the case.