Brian Keith Wallen of Lutherville vanished last month, leaving behind a suicide note. But then things got more complicated.
Last week, federal prosecutors filed charges against Wallen, alleging that he was part of a $50 million mail fraud scheme that involved using shell companies to cheat non-profits, churches, and homeless shelters out of money. According to prosecutors, the scheme involved calling up maintenance workers at various organizations in order to finagle the information they needed to send the companies light bulbs and other equipment that they never ordered. Then Wallen and his co-conspirators would allegedly send fraudulent and inflated invoices to the companies–sometimes for supplies that never showed up, and other times for things that were billed at 8,000 percent of the items’ shelf price. If the companies didn’t pay, then the shell companies’ “collections department” would repeatedly call and harass them until they did.
The mail fraud charges against Wallen could bring up to 20 years in prison; a U.S. attorney told the Sun that the investigation is on-going, and that more charges may well be filed.
Anyone with information on Brian Keith Wallen is asked to call police at 410-307-2020.
