BOSTON (AP) – A former Internal Revenue Service employee pleaded guilty Friday to returning stolen merchandise to Home Depot Stores in exchange for store credit cards, the U.S. Attorney’s office in Boston said.
Robert P. Dooley, 47, of Salem, pleaded guilty to 12 counts of wire fraud. Prosecutors say the employee of the IRS Andover Service Center defrauded Home Depot stores in nine states of more than $330,000.
Over the course of three years, Dooley returned stolen goods for the credit cards, then sold those cards at a discount, court documents said. He would flash his IRS identification badge to reluctant Home Depot clerks to persuade them to accept the stolen merchandise even though he had no receipts, prosecutors said.
Typically, prosecutors said, Dooley would visit a store, put several items in a shopping cart and take them to the return desk.
Although Home Depot allowed people to return items without receipts, clerks required customers to show photo identification when doing so. Prosecutors said Dooley would show his IRS badge as proof of his identity, and would sometimes tell the clerk that he was “trustworthy” because he worked for the IRS.
Dooley has been serving a state sentence for the Home Depot thefts since October 2005. A listing for his attorney could not be found Friday.
He will face sentencing on the federal charges on July 10.
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