Third defendant in Amazon fraud scheme sentenced to prison

Bridgeport resident Kenoy Stewart was sentenced to nine months of imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release, for his role in a scheme to defraud the e-commerce giant Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) that has already seen the conviction of two of his accomplices.

According to the charges brought against him, Stewart created multiple vendor accounts with Amazon allowing him to sell merchandise through the website on a third-party basis. He often opened the accounts using false names and email addresses, and he would inform Amazon that he was shipping it valuable merchandise to be held for sale by the company. However, he never shipped any merchandise and would later falsely claim that it had been lost, supporting his false claims with fabricated documents.

Amazon sent Stewart a series of refunds for the purportedly lost merchandise. Through this scheme, Stewart defrauded Amazon of $1,063.762.82.

Stewart pleaded guilty last February to one count of wire fraud. Stewart, who is released on a $50,000 bond, is required to report to prison on Oct. 30.

Two other individuals involved in this scheme pleaded guilty to the same charge – Stewart’s brother Oshane Stewart was sentenced to 18 months of imprisonment and Rajhni Yankana was sentenced to five months of imprisonment and five months of home detention.