[December 29, 2011] Two men plead guilty to bilking TDS Telecom Tweet Dec 29, 2011 (The Wisconsin State Journal - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Two men who ran a scheme that bilked a local telecommunications company of nearly $2.5 million pleaded guilty Thursday to a federal mail fraud charge. Andrew G. Mahaffy Sr., 64, who worked for Middleton-based TDS Telecom at offices in upstate New York and South Carolina, and Timothy P. Furness, 48, of Hilton, N.Y., who was a telecommunications equipment distributor, admitted that they billed TDS for fictitious work orders that Furness sent the company. Both men told U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb that TDS would then send payment for the work to Furness, who divided the proceeds with Mahaffy. Mahaffy told Crabb that he approached Furness, owner of F.F. Tronixs, about the scheme in 1998, and Furness agreed to do it. Mahaffy said he would tell Furness what sort of work to invoice and how much money to bill for it, and then Mahaffy, as a project implementation manager for TDS, would approve the invoices, prompting payment to F.F. Tronixs by TDS. Between 1998 and December 2009, 327 phony invoices were sent to TDS by F.F. Tronixs, U.S. Attorney John Vaudreuil said. The scheme started while Mahaffy worked at the TDS office in Cape Vincent, N.Y., where he was also village mayor from 2001 to 2005. It continued after Mahaffy moved to South Carolina and worked at the TDS offices in McClellanville and Stephen, S.C., Vaudreuil said. The scheme was discovered last year, after Mahaffy had retired, when his successor noticed an invoice for F.F. Tronixs but had never heard of the company. That led to an internal investigation by retired FBI agent Daniel Gill, who interviewed Mahaffy and Furness. Furness described the scheme in detail to Gill, despite voice mail messages from Mahaffy instructing him about what to tell Gill, Vaudreuil said. TDS spokesman Drew Petersen said the company reported its findings to law enforcement and worked closely with federal prosecutors on the case. He said TDS has "zero tolerance" for employee fraud and will always seek prosecution when it happens. Both men face up to 20 years in prison when they are sentenced by Crabb on March 13, though it is unlikely that the sentence for either will come close to that. ___ (c)2011 The Wisconsin State Journal (Madison, Wis.) Visit The Wisconsin State Journal (Madison, Wis.) at www.wisconsinstatejournal.com Distributed by MCT Information Services [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]