New York Woman Sentenced to 46 Months in Prison for Internet Fraud Scheme

(Alexandria, VA) -Ingrid Dina Levy, age 30, of Neponsit, New York, was sentenced today by U.S. District Court Judge James C. Cacheris to 46 months in prison, restitution of $168,300.07, and three years of supervised release, announced Chuck Rosenberg, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

On February 25, 2008, Levy was convicted on three counts of mail fraud, and four counts of wire fraud by a federal jury in Alexandria, Virginia following a three day trial.

Judge Cacheris found that Levy, through an array of online fashion clothing businesses, defrauded more than 80 customers of more than $160,000 from 2004 through 2006. The businesses she used in her scheme included WWW.RUNWAYRENEGADE.COM, WWW.BUBBLEPOPSHOP.COM, WWW.SHOPCHIC.NET, WWW.SHOPLILLIE.COM, WWW.SHOPLILY.COM, and WWW.FASHIONGLOW.COM.

Four victims of Mrs. Levy’s fraudulent scheme testified at trial about her methods of inducing large upfront non-refundable payments for designer fashion clothing items and manipulating the customers in order to prevent them from getting refunds when she failed to deliver their full orders.

As part of her fraudulent scheme, the evidence at trial showed that Levy used fictitious names and business addresses to make it appear she was a large, legitimate, and authorized retailer of many designer fashion clothing brands. Many of her customers were people who wanted to start-up their own fashion clothing businesses and were led to believe that she was a legitimate wholesaler of those products. The evidence at trial showed that Levy cashed the checks that people sent her for wholesale lots of items and sent nothing or sent individual items she bought from discount retail clothing stores in New York. When people complained that they had not received their orders, she often would use an array of identities to assure them that items were shipped, there was an accounting mistake of some kind, or that orders were fulfilled, and would blame non-existent employees for the error. The evidence showed that these actions were taken to frustrate the customers until they gave up on getting a refund.

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington Field Office. Substantial assistance was also provided by the Internet Crime Complaint Center; FBI, New York Field Office; the U.S. Postal Service; and the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office.

Assistant United States Attorney Jay V. Prabhu of the Eastern District of Virginia and Trial Attorneys Thomas S. Dougherty and Tyler G. Newby of the U.S. Department of Justice's Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section prosecuted the case for the United States.

# # #

Press Releases | Washington Field Office Home