Man scammed over 100 charities by getting refunds on donations he never made, feds say
A 53-year-old man from Tennessee is accused of orchestrating an elaborate donation scheme to steal from televangelists, a pro-abortion news outlet and dozens of nonprofits and charities.
Now he’s headed to prison.
Jaime Walsh was sentenced to 6.5 years on Wednesday after he pleaded guilty to bank fraud in March, prosecutors in the Western District of Tennessee said in a news release. He was also ordered to pay $203,840 in restitution and $241,397 in damages.
Walsh could not be reached for comment, and a defense attorney appointed to represent him did not immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment on Thursday.
From 2013 to 2019, Walsh is accused of targeting over 100 organizations and attempting to defraud them of more than $863,000. He ultimately succeeded in stealing $241,397, prosecutors said.
A grand jury indicted Walsh on charges of wire fraud, mail fraud, false claims against the government and bank fraud in June 2020.
According to the indictment, Walsh began targeting charities and nonprofit groups across the U.S. in the summer of 2013. Prosecutors said he submitted donations online and asked for a refund shortly thereafter, claiming the donation had been made in error.
“For example, defendant Walsh would make a donation of $4,500 and then contact the organization, claiming that he intended to make a donation of only $45, and ask for a refund of $4,455,” prosecutors said in the indictment.
Once the organization refunded the money, the government said, Walsh immediately withdrew it from his account. His initial donation would never go through because of insufficient funds.
A snapshot of transactions in 2018 and 2019 show Walsh “accidentally” donated between $4,500 and $7,500 to the pro-abortion news outlet LifeNews.com, a Catholic church called the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels and the Convention of States movement.
LifeNews.com is tagged for “bias” and “clickbait” on the Columbia Journalism Review’s index of fake-news, clickbait and hate sites. The Convention of States effort is a conservative-backed movement to limit federal powers by calling a constitutional convention, which the nonpartisan watchdog group Common Cause says would pose an “unacceptable risk.”
Prosecutors said Walsh sometimes followed up with the organization where he claimed to have submitted a donation, saying he didn’t receive the first refund and asking for another.
He sent one such email to Life Outreach International, a Texas-based Christian outreach group run by televangelists James and Betty Robison. In the email, prosecutors said, Walsh wrote that he never received a refund and asked Life Outreach to process it again.
Court documents show Walsh also received a bogus refund from Insight for Living, another Texas-based bible ministry run by the evangelical Christian pastor Chuck Swindoll.
Walsh often pressured the organizations to issue his refund quickly, saying he couldn’t pay rent or make his car loan payment until the refund came through, according to the indictment.
He made his initial court appearance in July 2020. Court documents show Walsh was granted a $10,000 bond and could be released into his brother’s care while confined to home detention. Subsequent court filings indicated Walsh remained in custody.
After pleading guilty to one count of the 8-count indictment in March, both Walsh and the government requested a prison sentence of 63 months, or just over five years.
Walsh’s lawyer asked in court filings that Walsh serve his federal sentence concurrently with any sentence he receives on pending state charges in Kentucky. He also asked for credit toward his sentence from time served at the Shelby County Jail in Memphis, Tennessee, on state charges that were later dropped, and to serve the sentence at a federal medical facility.
The judge partially granted his request Wednesday, allowing him to serve the federal and state sentences together with credit for time served.
The Bureau of Prisons will decide where Walsh will serve his sentence, but the judge recommended he be allowed certain treatments, therapy and counseling during that time.
This story was originally published July 22, 2021 at 11:06 AM with the headline "Man scammed over 100 charities by getting refunds on donations he never made, feds say."
