When it comes to those caught creating and selling counterfeit coupons, there is “a perception that only ringleaders face consequences,” Coupon Information Corporation Executive Director Bud Miller told a federal judge this week.
That’s no longer the case, as a Florida woman was sentenced this morning to a year in prison followed by two years of supervised release, for purchasing and using hundreds of fraudulent coupons – indicating that those who buy counterfeit coupons are now officially on notice that they can be held criminally accountable as well.
Cindi Swindle of Jacksonville was charged last year with being one of the five top customers of notorious coupon counterfeiter Lori Ann Talens, who is currently serving a 12-year prison sentence. Talens “constructed what may be one of the biggest counterfeit coupon schemes in history,” prosecutors said, by designing, printing and selling online some 13,000 counterfeits with a face value of about $31 million.
And one doesn’t become a successful seller without willing buyers. Of the more than 2,000 individuals who purchased Talens’s creations, prosecutors said Swindle was the fifth-largest buyer, spending $4,776.98 for hundreds of coupons on dozens of different occasions, causing losses to retailers and manufacturers conservatively estimated at $213,849.
“It was clear to everyone involved that these activities were fraudulent,” prosecutors explained to the court. Messages they obtained showed that Talens’s customers “would place orders for various coupons and discuss the intricacies of perpetuating the fraud.”
Swindle had earlier pleaded guilty and accepted responsibility for her actions. She faced a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, but argued that a sentence of home confinement or no more than three months behind bars would be appropriate.
“Despite her ironic last name, she was no ‘swindler,'” her attorney told the court. While she showed “a moment of poor judgment,” her “role was that of a consumer, not a counterfeiter. She neither created nor distributed the counterfeit coupons and derived no profit beyond her own savings from their use.” Her attorney also implicitly criticized law enforcement for going after any of Talens’s customers at all, calling the prosecution of Talens’s top customers “largely an afterthought following the successful prosecution of the architect of the counterfeit operation.”
The prosecution, in contrast, recommended that Swindle receive a prison sentence of 18 months. “This was an ongoing fraud scheme that the defendant participated in for multiple years and only stopped when investigative agents executed a search warrant on the Talens residence in 2020 and put a stop the fraud ring,” they told the judge. “But for the law enforcement intervention, the Talens’s fraud scheme would be continuing to this day and defendant Swindle would be purchasing counterfeit coupons.”
In arguing their case, prosecutors produced victim impact statements to show that buying and using counterfeit coupons is not a victimless crime. “Frauds like this affect our consumers because they divert resources away from coupon funding,” read a statement from Unilever, one of the companies that suffered losses in the scheme. Counterfeit coupons “force limitations on the value of coupons we offer, the length of time for which a coupon is valid, and the frequency with which we promote products using coupons.”
The CIC’s Miller said Talens’s operation would not have succeeded, had it not been for the customers who “provided the financial fuel” for the scheme. “These were not casual or inadvertent offenders. The scale of their purchases far exceeded personal use.” The five customers who participated in the scheme only stopped after Talens was caught, he pointed out, otherwise they might have continued to do so indefinitely.
And a prison sentence is not necessarily punishment for Swindle’s actions alone, but deterrence for anyone else who might consider buying counterfeit coupons – and who might think that only those who create and sell them ever get in trouble for it. “The Talens case has already had a deterrent effect, prompting some counterfeit groups on social media platforms to shut themselves down,” Miller said. A significant sentence “will reinforce accountability and strengthen deterrence by sending the message that the purchasers of counterfeit coupons can also be brought to justice.”
Swindle’s attorney sent the judge more than a dozen letters from friends and relatives, attesting to her character and pleading for a lenient sentence. Swindle herself wrote that she accepts “the seriousness of my actions and the impact they have had on others… I know I cannot undo what has happened, but I can promise that I have learned from this experience and that I am determined never to repeat these mistakes.”
Prosecutors acknowledged that Swindle “is intelligent and hard working as evidenced by her educational and work history. Nonetheless, she is responsible for participating in one of the largest coupon fraud schemes ever discovered in the United States.”
Now she will be paying the price. In addition to prison time, she’s been ordered to pay $201,650 in restitution. And as they await their own sentencing dates, four of Talens’s other top customers are now on notice, that the cost of their involvement could be a steep one as well.
Image source: FBI
