Lafayette businessman serving federal sentence indicted on eight new counts of wire fraud

A Lafayette businessman serving a federal prison sentence for mail fraud faces new charges in a separate alleged scheme.

Leonard Espree, who ran an office equipment supply company, pleaded guilty last year to double-billing the Calcasieu Parish School Board and other victims, resulting in a loss of nearly $200,000 in 2011. Espree is serving a 37-month sentence in a federal prison in Texas in that case.

A federal grand jury last week delivered an eight-count indictment on wire fraud charges related to Espree’s alleged defrauding of companies that finance and lease office equipment, several years after ripping off the Calcasieu Parish School Board.

Espree’s company, Ameritek Office Solutions Inc., served as a vendor to financiers such as Hewlett-Packard Financial Services Co., selling copiers and other equipment to businesses on lease-purchase deals, prosecutors say. The financiers would pay Ameritek the contract price for the equipment, while the businesses would pay monthly installments to the financiers.

Espree is accused of fabricating equipment sales and taking the money financiers provided to cover the contract prices. Espree allegedly went so far as to pose as employees of the businesses purportedly purchasing the equipment, because some of the transactions required verbal authorizations.

Espree is accused of defrauding Hewlett-Packard, Lease Corporation of America and CIT Bank in this manner on eight occasions between November 2015 and July 2016. The three companies deposited $294,292 into Espree’s business account as a result of the fraudulent transactions, according to prosecutors.

The supposed customers are real businesses that “never requested or received” the equipment Espree claimed to sell, the indictment says. In at least one case, Espree’s alleged scheme unraveled when the financier sent an invoice to the customer.