A former support employee in Rochester, New York, has pleaded guilty to illegally selling Intuit software through eBay, taking advantage of the software company’s policy to supply free replacement disks of its products at the request of customers.
Raymond Locklin, 29, a former employee of outsourcer Sutherland Global Services in Rochester, was assigned when on the job to provide support to Intuit’s customers and had access to its computer system. He has pleaded guilty to having obtained fraudulently disks for Intuit’s products including TurboTax and Quicken software, taking advantage of the software vendor’s policy of providing free replacement of software disks by mail to its customers, according to court papers.
Locklin then advertised the software for sale on e-commerce site eBay, and mailed the software to the customers after receiving payment through online payment processor PayPal.
The defendant entered a plea agreement Thursday in U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York in which he pleaded guilty to conspiring with one Christi Meehan between Oct. 20, 2009 and July 1, 2011 to obtain copies of Intuit software and sell it online, according to court documents.
Locklin and Meehan sold more than 2,500 copies of Intuit software in this period across the U.S., resulting in a loss of about $262,000 to the company.
The sentencing of Locklin is scheduled for Aug. 13, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of New York. Locklin pleaded guilt before District Judge David G. Larimer to conspiracy to commit mail fraud which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, a fine of $250,000, or both. Locklin earlier waived his right to prosecution by indictment. Meehan, who earlier pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit mail fraud, will be sentenced on July 16, according to the attorney’s office.