Antelope man sentenced for manipulating credit ratings

An Antelope man has been sentenced to two years in prison for a scheme to deceive credit reporting agencies.

Ricky Lamont Flemings, 31, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge William B. Shubb for two counts of mail fraud, according to a U.S Attorney’s Office news release.

Court documents indicate that Flemings engaged in a long-running scheme to deceive Experian and the other credit reporting agencies by exploiting provisions of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, a statute intended to provide consumer protections to individuals.

From 2005 until Nov. 12, 2009, Flemings contacted Experian on multiple occasions and falsely reported that he was the victim of identify theft. During that period, Flemings demanded that Experian remove derogatory and other entries from his credit report, although he knew that many of those entries were proper and the result of his having sought credit or purchased items on credit, authorities said.

As a result of Flemings’ false statements, Experian blocked 162 inquiries and 40 trade lines from his credit report. Once those trade lines and inquiries were blocked, Flemings received financing from Schools Financial Credit Union, a federally insured credit union, to refinance a 2005 Lincoln Navigator and to purchase a 2006 Monterey boat, authorities said.

The loans were approved after the credit union examined a credit report that did not include fraudulently blocked entries. After receiving credit for the Lincoln and the boat, Flemings contacted Experian and reported that the entries on his credit report related to these two items were fraudulent and should be removed.

The case resulted from an investigation by the U.S. Secret Service and the Placer County Sheriff’s Office.

This story was originally published June 29, 2015 at 7:48 PM with the headline "Antelope man sentenced for manipulating credit ratings."