San Diego Man Indicted for Fraudulently Obtaining Millions of Dollars of Cash and Equipment of Cisco

SAN FRANCISCO—Yesterday, a federal grand jury in San Francisco indicted Quin Rudin (aka Dean Rubin, aka David Rubin) with two counts of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft, United States Attorney Melinda Haag announced.

According to court documents, Rudin controlled CGC Digital (CGC), a company that was as an authorized partner of Cisco Systems Inc. Last fall, CGC contacted Cisco to arrange for the lease of Cisco equipment on behalf of an end user, Altura Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Altura). Based on the information provided by CGC, Cisco approved the lease of equipment to Altura and agreed to provide more than $5.8 million in financing for the lease. According to the agreements, CGC would receive the Cisco equipment and the financing to install and service the equipment at Altura. In truth, Altura did not intend to lease any Cisco equipment, and no employee of Altura had engaged CGC to arrange a lease.

At the end of October 2012, a representative of CGC e-mailed to Cisco signed copies of agreements regarding Altura’s purported lease of Cisco equipment. Each agreement was purportedly signed by Altura’s Chief Financial Officer. Days prior to submission of these forged Altura documents to Cisco, Rudin allegedly caused the creation of an Internet domain purported to be that of Altura ending in “.net.” This .net domain was registered not to Altura but to CGC. Rudin then allegedly caused e-mails to be sent from the Altura.net domain to a Cisco representative. Each e-mail purported to be from the same employee at Altura who had executed the agreements, and each e-mail prompted Cisco to make a payment to CGC. These payments to CGC totaled approximately $2 million dollars.

The FBI arrested Rudin in San Diego on February 26. Rudin made his initial appearance in federal court in San Diego, and he remains in custody pending his arrival in San Francisco to face these charges.

The maximum statutory penalty for each count of wire fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343, is 20 years’ imprisonment, a fine of $250,000, or twice the gross gain or loss, whichever is greater, plus restitution if appropriate. The maximum statutory penalty for aggravated identity theft, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1028A, is two years’ imprisonment, to be imposed consecutively to any term of imprisonment imposed for wire fraud. However, any sentence following conviction would be imposed by the court after consideration of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and the federal statute governing the imposition of a sentence, 18 U.S.C. § 3553.

Kyle Waldinger and Hallie Hoffman are the Assistant U.S. Attorneys who are prosecuting the case with the assistance of Rayneisha Booth and Rawaty Yim. The prosecution is the result of a one-month investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Please note that an indictment contains only allegations against an individual, and, as with all defendants, Rudin must be presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

A copy of this press release may be found on the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Web site at www.usdoj.gov/usao/can.