An Erie, Pennsylvania Buick-GMC dealer, its owner and general manager, and another man were indicted this week for wire fraud over a bogus loan application scheme.
A U.S. District Court handed down the indictment on Tuesday, Automotive News reports, with court documents alleging the three men submitted fake car loan applications through “straw individuals.”
Charged are Adam Weaver, majority owner of Rick Weaver Buick-GMC Inc., general manager Douglas Grooms and Adam Coover, majority owner of Infinity Automotive and Infinity Transport.
The alleged scheme involved using two straw individuals to purchase vehicles from the dealer, which ultimately remained in Coover’s hands at Infinity Automotive. The phony buyers signed purchase and loan paperwork already filled out by Coover, with Weaver and Grooms processing the documents and submitting them to financial institutions and loan providers through the dealer’s computers.
Between May 2016 and March of this year, the three men allegedly netted $649,824.44 in automotive loans through the scheme. A further $320,727 in sales was halted after the straw buyers failed to secure a loan.
A March police raid on both businesses ended the fraud scheme. At the time of his arrest, Doug Grooms had just plead guilty to embezzling $500,000 from a Chevrolet dealer in nearby Meadville, Pennsylvania. Coover has also been indicted in a separate wire fraud scheme.
If convicted, each man could receive a fine of $1 million and up to 30 years in jail.
[Image: Google Street View]
‘He’s fleein’ the innerview!’
I just knew the first comment would be a Jerry Lundegard reference!
I only clicked to see how fast Fargo would be thrown in there.
the funny thing is, back when DVD had just come out (2000/2001) we bought a player from a local A/V shop. They threw in a few DVDs with the purchase, and Fargo was one of them. We didn’t watch it until 2013, and I have no idea why.
Headed for the cheap motel.
Confused. “Between May 2016 and March of this year,..” Do you mean May 2015?
According to the linked article, yes.
That looks like an awful place to buy a car, with its old flat-roofed building, cars parked on the scraggly lawn and almost nothing but GM vehicles for sale.
Welcome to Erie.
GM vehicles at a GM dealer? That’s weird.
Remodeling appears to be underway. That’s Tyvek building wrap on the front.
That’s a nice two tone Park Avenue out front though.
Oh, they’re just a couple of decent poor souls who bit off more than they could chew.
Look at that fine two-tone Park Avenue out front.
“Hey Bill, go put our best looking car right up on the front lawn.”
“Sure thing, Ted. One two-tone 1995 Buick coming right up!”
“And then put our worst piece of sh*t right behind it, to show them the difference!”
“Right, base Uplander behind Buick.”
If I owned a dealership, I’d offer $400 for any Wind/Freestar/Monterey, Uplander/Terraza/etc that was to be traded in. If they took that deal, I’d put the van on a flatbed trailer, remove the wheels and tires, drain the fuel, and take it to the crusher. Call it a mercy killing. They don’t deserve to live, even their parts should not be used to let others of their kind live.
If the Windstar had a 3.0L, I’d drop it before the trip to the crusher. At least it could live on in a different Ford. Maybe the same for the GM engines, won’t they fit an Impala, etc? 3400?
Yes! The Windstar in 3.0L trim was the only decent one, much better than the Essex 3.8. But, you still had the crappy transaxle, the front subframes that rusted (ever seen the redneck repair that Ford devised for those?) and those rear axles that crack.
Last weekend I had the utter privilege of driving my grandparents Terraza CXL. It’s an 05, and I made sure to note the mileage because I figured it wasn’t that high.
Yep, not quite at 47,000.
That crap is so wallowly, good grief. I will say the steering action is nice and smooth though.
Oh this Erie story hit close to home!
(Aaaand it put it in the wrong place. Nice.)
@duke,
Yes, I had a 1997 3.0L, it had a smooth ride, but that was the only advantage it had over my Aerostars.
I’ve had good luck with Taurus and Sables, but the extra weight of the minivan seemed to exacerbate the issues with those transaxles. The 3.8L was much worse on them, in any FWD product they were put in.
I was up in Cleveland this week and saw one like that with Blizzak snow tires ON THE REAR only.
I haven’t seen a 90s Buick that clean in quite a while.
Must be a Stealer fan, get it?
“If convicted, each man could receive a fine of $1 million and up to 30 years in jail.”
What fools. Everyone knows that if you’re going to steal, you steal from average individuals, not from banks. That you can get away with. (Wells Fargo, I’m looking at you.)
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2015/09/dealer-swindled-6-billion-general-motors/
There’s a reason these guys thought they could get away with it long enough to become too big to fail.
At least nobody ended up in a wood chipper.
Bob might have.
(little cross thread humor)
Every time a car dealer gets indicted, a little angel gets its wings.
That does make the heart warm!
Who the heck watches Fargo and thinks; “Now, there’s a good idea!”
What am I missing? The cars are floorplanned by GM so they get the loan from XYZ and pay off the loan from GM. But, they still have the car. What do they do with the car?
Yeah I’m trying to figure out what they do with the car to complete the scam? Sell it to someone who is exporting it to a 3rd world country?
Looks like the third guy had hid own car lot, so I’m guessing he had the cars not sure what they did with them.
So how does it work when GM takes a franchise away now? I can remember that when GMAC was in operation, they would take over the dealership and temporarily change the name on the signs to “Patlan” – the way I heard it, Patlan was the last name of some GMAC executive or manager.
Then, they would sell the franchise to another buyer, and replace “Patlan” with the name chosen by the new owner.
This happened with a couple of dealers here in the DFW area back in the ’80s – Late Chevrolet in Richardson, and Parkway Pontiac in Plano. Both dealers had been keeping the sales tax and registration fees and not forwarding them to the county and the state (customers started complaining when they weren’t given license plates, and were instead given one cardboard temporary tag after another). GMAC seized the dealerships, and the Patlan name went up, until new buyers could be found.
I’m curious… So this is news because a GM dealer was indicted for shady dealings with money? What if this had been a Hyundai or VW dealer? Would it still make the news feed?
OTOH, this story is just weird. I can’t figure out what they were doing with the cars, either.