Man must pay $150,000 for part in card theft

A man who was part of a scheme to use stolen credit card numbers to make hundreds of thousands in phony gas purchases was ordered to pay more than $150,000 in restitution Wednesday.

Jay Patel appeared for sentencing before U.S. District Judge Susan Hickey with Little Rock lawyer Brooke Steen in a third-floor courtroom of Texarkana's downtown federal building. Patel is one of three men charged in connection with the use of stolen Ryder Corp. credit cards to make fraudulent gas purchases at Horizon Food Mart in Prescott, Ark., from 2009 to 2011. Horizon has since closed its doors.

Patel was a manager at the gas station when Kenneth Luke, a former driver for Ryder, brought the stolen credit cards to him with a plan to use the ill-gotten card numbers to effect purchases for gas that was never pumped. The proceeds of the sales were split between Luke and Patel at the beginning. When Patel left his job, he trained the store's new manager, Sadiq Lakhani, to use the card numbers as he had been. From that point, the profits were divvied between Luke and Lakhani. Luke acquired the numbers by using a cellphone to take a picture of a chalk board at a Ryder office in Dallas on which they had been written.

Documents in Lakhani's and Luke's cases state an investigation was launched by the FBI and Arkansas State Police after Ryder officials noticed a large number of purchases being charged to the company that originated with Horizon. Investigators conducted video surveillance and tracked the credit cards. They were able to determine the drivers to whom the credit card numbers were assigned were actually in other states at the times of multiple purchases in Arkansas.

Lakhani was sentenced to six months in federal prison, six months home detention and ordered to pay $581,754.88 in restitution jointly with Luke in September 2014. Luke was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $740,923.33 in restitution. Hickey ordered Patel to pay $159,168.45 in restitution jointly with Luke.

While Luke is liable for the full amount lost by Ryder and a credit card processing company, Patel and Lakhani are liable only for the amounts stolen while they were actually working at Horizon. If Lakhani and Patel don't pay anything, Luke is on the hook for the full amount.

Patel was sentenced Wednesday morning by Hickey to time served, or 14 months, plus ten days. The extra ten days is meant to give authorities a chance to transfer Patel into Immigration Customs and Enforcement custody. Hickey said Patel's deportation is expected but not certain, during Wednesday's hearing.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Ross told Hickey that Patel was holding a one-way ticket for travel out of the U.S. when he was arrested by U.S. Marshals in New Jersey on March 2014 but that his cooperation has been good since then.

"He just wants to apologize to the court and to his family," Steen said on Patel's behalf. "He has learned his lesson."

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