Pinellas Man Sentenced To Seven Years In Prison For Telemarketing Scam

Tampa, FL – U.S. District Judge Virginia Hernandez Covington has sentenced Mark Boring (47, St. Petersburg) to seven years in federal prison for his role in a telemarketing scheme. As part of Boring’s sentence, the court also entered a money judgment of $75,000, the proceeds of the wire fraud conspiracy. In addition, Boring was directed to pay a total of $895,011.03 to victims of the scheme.

According to court records, from 2016 through at least 2018, Boring conspired with others to take money from victims throughout the United States who wanted to sell their timeshare properties or other parcels of land. Boring and others placed telephone calls to these victims impersonating real estate professionals. They misled the timeshare owners to believe the conspirators had identified buyers for the victims’ timeshares and other property. The conspirators further advised the victims that the timeshare and property sales could be completed if the victims made one or more advanced payments to the conspirators for various fees purportedly associated with the sales, such as closing costs, courier services, title searches, transfer fees, and legal fees. Once the victims agreed to pay the bogus fees, the conspirators directed the victims to send funds via wire transfers to one of the conspirators. That conspirator then withdrew the fraud proceeds and shared them with the others, based on each conspirator’s role in the fraudulent transaction. The conspirators often repeatedly re-contacted their victims and fraudulently advised them that additional fees were needed in order to complete the sales, and they continued to dupe the victims into sending bogus advanced fees until the victims either ran out of money or became aware of the scam.    

Gary Kinard previously pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 7 years and 11 months in federal prison for his role in the scheme. Martin Steele, Troy Cater, and David Bell have also pleaded guilty to participating in the scheme and are pending sentencing.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the St. Petersburg Police Department, and the Florida Departmentof Law Enforcement. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Rachel K. Jones.