Ex-Delta employees indicted in $22M false invoicing scheme

Two former Delta Air Lines Inc. employees were indicted for allegedly defrauding the Atlanta-based carrier out of $22 million through a false invoicing scheme.

According to U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates, the indictment, and other information presented in court: Paul Anderson had been an employee of Northwest Airlines since 1979. In 2008, Delta (NYSE: DAL) bought Northwest. The two airlines merged into a single company in December 2009, at which time Anderson became an employee of Delta working in its Minneapolis, Minn., office.

The indictment alleges from at least 2004 through 2013, Anderson was involved with Michael Yedor in a scheme to defraud Northwest and, later, Delta, by submitting numerous false invoices on behalf of a company, Airborne Voice and Data, purportedly owned by Yedor. The invoices sought payment from the airlines for goods provided and services supposedly rendered by Airborne Voice and Data, when in fact, both Anderson and Yedor knew Yedor’s company had not provided any such goods or services.

The indictment also alleges Yedor sent the invoices to Anderson to be approved. Anderson approved the fraudulent invoices, which caused the airlines to issue payments to Airborne Voice and Data. In exchange for approving each of the invoices, Anderson received a portion of the proceeds of the fraud.

The indictment alleges Yedor and Anderson caused Northwest and Delta to issue some $22 million in payments to Airborne on the basis of the false invoices between 2004 and 2013.

Yedor, 62, of Los Angeles, Calif., and Anderson, 57, of Apple Valley, Minn., were indicted on June 10, 2014, and have each been charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and ninety-six counts of mail fraud.

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Airline employees who stole luggage in aftermath of Asiana crash in San Francisco last year sentenced to nine and six months prison

A husband and his wife, both United Airlines employees, were sentenced Tuesday to prison time for stealing luggage from passengers whose flights were diverted or cancelled in the aftermath of the Asiana Airlines crash at San Francisco International Airport last summer. Sean Sharif Crudup, 44, and Raychas Elizabeth Thomas, 32, both of Richmond, California, pleaded no contest to grand theft and possessing stolen property. They received sentences of nine months and six months, respectively, according to the Los Angeles Times.

They also received probation of three years and were ordered to pay $6,000 in restitutution, with most of that amount going to the high-end department store Nordstrom. Some of the passengers' whose luggage was stolen was headed from San Francisco to the Cayman. The luggage contained jewelry and clothing worth about $30,000.

'Ms. Thomas had taken a bunch of the clothing to Nordstrom to sell it back,' San Mateo County District Attorney Wagstaffe said at the time of the couple’s arrest last July. 'A search warrant was issued for their home in Richmond, and a large number of the items were found there.'

They were arrested at the San Francisco airport on July 25, 2013, as they were about to board a flight to Hawaii. Some of the items Crudup and Thomas stole from other people's luggage was found in their possession. A subsequent search of their home found even more stolen items, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Thomas will surrender to custody in December to start serving time, while Crudup will follow in December.

The Asiana crash on July 6, 2013 killed three Chinese students on board the flight from Seoul. More than 200 other people were injured. The accident wreaked havoc on the San Francisco airport for days, cancelling flights and diverting others.

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