Former Roadrunner driver sentenced for cash advance fraud scheme

A former driver for Roadrunner has been sentenced for his role in a fraud scheme involving one of the trucking company’s dispatch managers.

On Jan. 17, a federal court judge in Nebraska sentenced Johnny Bradford of Las Vegas to three years of supervised release, including six months of house arrest, and ordered him to pay more than $112,000 in restitution. Last year, Bradford pleaded guilty to charges stemming from a fraud scheme involving Roadrunner’s reefer division, a dispatch manager and driver cash advances.

According to court documents, Roadrunner drivers can request a cash advance for different business-related purposes, including truck/trailer repairs, trailer cleaning or lumper payment. Advances are carried out by maintenance or dispatch employees.

An authorized Roadrunner employee would approve the cash advance information to generate a check code, which would be communicated to an electronic wire transfer service. Drivers, who have a checkbook for the wire transfer service, would write themselves a check. A vendor would then cash the check by verifying the check code.

From February 2018 through June 2019, Bradford worked with Amy Shepherd, a Roadrunner dispatch lead manager, to devise a scheme involving the authorization of fraudulent driver cash advances.

Using her position as a dispatch lead manager, Shepherd fraudulently generated advances. When creating the checks, she would use check codes that falsely indicated the need for the advance for business purposes.

After generating the check code, Shepherd sent the code to Bradford, who then would write up a check and have it cashed. Upon receiving the funds, Bradford would use Western Union to send a portion of the money to Shepherd.

According to the complaint, Shepherd and Bradford caused an actual loss of more than $112,000. The complaint did not include how many checks were written. However, four examples ranged from $300 to more than $800.

Bradford and Shepherd were indicted on wire fraud charges in January 2022. Bradford pleaded guilty last September to one of four counts of wire fraud. Shepherd pleaded guilty in August. In December, she was sentenced to 18 months in prison, three years of supervised release and also ordered to pay more than $112,000 in restitution.

This is not the first time Roadrunner has had to deal with fraud within the company.

In December 2021, former Roadrunner Chief Financial Officer Peter Armbruster was sentenced to two years in prison for a $245 million fraud scheme. Armbruster and two other executives defrauded shareholders and misled independent auditors and regulators from 2014 to 2017 about the actual financial condition of the company. Read more about that case here. LL