Shady car dealerships have been in the news lately, but few compare to Randy Greene who owned RJ’s Auto Sales of Huntsville, Alabama.
So what set Mr. Greene apart from his competition? According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Alabama, Green liked rolling back odometers – a lot. We’re not talking hundreds of miles or even thousands of miles, but well over 100,000 miles (160,934 km). In one case, the government alleges Greene rolled back an odometer more than 218,000 miles (350,837 km) which is roughly equivalent to 78 trips between New York and Los Angeles.
While that seems to be the extreme scenario, Greene allegedly rolled back the odometers of at least 12 vehicles. The Department of Justice says they were rolled back an average of more than 122,000 miles (196,340 km) which is about half the distance to the moon.
The scheme allegedly occurred between October 2014 and November 2016. However, the government isn’t entirely certain and is asking people who purchased vehicles from the dealership, in the past five years, to contact the Secret Service if they believe they were a victim.
Green has been indicted on 15 different charges including three counts of bank fraud and 12 counts of tampering with vehicle odometers. If convicted, Greene faces up to three years in jail for each odometer count as well as a fine of up to $250,000 (£195,825 / €220,956).
The fraud charges are even more serious and they stem from loans issued to Green by a credit union which financed three of the vehicles with odometers that had been rolled back. He’ll have to repay $28,000 (£21,935 / €24,746) to cover the loans and could face up to a million dollar fine. That’s on top of a prison sentence of up to 30 years.
