Charleston, WV — A federal grand jury has returned an indictment charging three Kentucky residents with ten counts of fraud and identity theft relating to a scheme to defraud a major car company of more than $4 million. According to the indictment, 44 year old James Pinson, 56 year old Gary Conn and 53 year old Tammy Newsome all of Kentucky, organized and participated in a scheme to misuse a car company’s warranty extension program that offered to repurchase certain trucks for 150% of their value, so long as those trucks were owned by individual customers rather than a dealership. Participants in the scheme bought the trucks at wholesale prices at auction through Pinson’s car dealership, Big Blue Motor Sales of Louisa, Kentucky. They then obtained hundreds of copies of Kentucky and West Virginia residents’ driver’s licenses, fraudulently titled the trucks in the name of those residents and induced the car company to repurchase the trucks at 150% of value. According to the indictment, the indicted defendants ran 350 trucks through the scheme between 2013 and 2015, causing approximately $4.3 million in losses to the car company. Newsome is also charged with aggravated identity theft. 68-year-old Frank Russo of North Carolina and 58-year-old Kevin Fluharty of West Virginia have already been indicted for their role in the same scheme. If convicted, the three defendants face up to 30 years in prison.