PHOENIX – The final defendant in a telemarketing scheme, Trevor Wesley Gabler, was sentenced on January 13, 2020, to 54 months in prison. Gabler previously pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud in connection with telemarketing.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, four other defendants pleaded guilty and were previously sentenced, including:
Brandon Trevor Ball, age 47, of Phoenix, to 60 months’ imprisonment
Jackie Nikiel Whitley, 38, of Phoenix, to 30 months’ imprisonment
Brian Lee Gibson, 37, of Mesa, to 15 months’ imprisonment
Gordon Lynn Hardy, 57, of Chandler, to a time-served sentence of approximately one year.
The Justice Department says Gabler and Ball managed the telemarketing scheme, which operated from 2015 to 2018 out of several office park locations in Phoenix and Tempe. They communicated via telephone with elderly consumers, first from a front room, where employees used false names to obtain basic customer information, and then from a back room, where telemarketers also used false names and promised a sham business opportunity in exchange for more than $10,000 per victim. The opportunities promised to the victims were never fulfilled.
The defendants were ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $4,116,625 to 113 victims from around the country, most of whom were over the age of 65.