Eight former personnel of Pilot Flying J are now on hot waters after being accused of cheating its customers. The company's president, 2 vice presidents and 5 more accomplices will face trial on 2017.
Cleveland Browns owner, Jimmy Haslam and Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam's company Pilot Flying J is on the headlines now for their former executives were accused of conspiring and leaving customers from discounts and rebates, as reported by Ohio.
The trial was originally set to be conducted on April 2016 but the attorneys of the former employees sought to have more time in analyzing the complex case. The motion to postpone was issued saying the government recently collected data amounting to five terabytes of information which should be translated to hundreds of millions of pages.
ABC News Go wrote that former president Mark Hazelwood, former vice presidents John Freeman and Scott Wombold were the top personnel being accused. With them are five other members of the sales team who conspired to do the alleged cheating. All of the eight plead not guilty to the charges.
Prior to this, company owner Jimmy Haslam has denied previous knowledge of the fraud or any personal wrongdoing. Meanwhile, the governor said that he's not being involved in the operation of Pilot Flying J.
The indictment reads that former vice president Freeman instructed his sales staff to "say one thing, and do another," as written in Herald Courier. Moreover, the indictment added that there are examples of a coordination between the staffs and their bosses to avoid getting caught in doing the act. These actions include telling lies to the customers. In an email accessed, the employee quoted Freeman saying "we just need to sing from the same hymn book."
The Pilot Flying J fraud case is now moving forward but with another year before the trial starts. U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Guyton has set the trial date to start on October 24, 2017. Previously, ten employees have been found guilty after the federal agents searched their headquarters last 2013. The company was ordered to pay $92 million penalty to the government and another $85 million for settlement.
