Tampa Man Sentenced for Dubuque Concert Fraud

A man who participated in a scheme to promote and sell tickets to a non-existent rap concert purportedly to be held in Dubuque was sentenced today to 78 months in federal prison.

Scott Elkins, 38, from Tampa, Florida, received the prison term after a guilty plea on August 30, 2011, to one count of mail fraud.

At the guilty plea, Elkins admitted that he and others devised a scheme to defraud potential concert-goers by promoting and selling tickets to a concert that they knew would not occur. They mailed a package containing flyers, tickets, and money orders related to the purported concert to a radio station in Dubuque. Elkins had previously been involved in setting up similar fake concerts in Indiana, Alabama, New Mexico, North Dakota, Texas, and Athens, Ohio.

Elkins was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Chief Judge Linda R. Reade. Elkins was sentenced to 78 months’ imprisonment. A special assessment of $100 was imposed, and he was ordered to make $60,000 in restitution to the victims of his scam. He must also serve a three-year term of supervised release after the prison term. There is no parole in the federal system.

Elkins is being held in the United States Marshal’s custody until he can be transported to a federal prison.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Sean Berry and investigated by the Dubuque County Sheriff’s Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Court file information is available at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl. The case file number is CR 11-1002.