A trio of Phoenix-area men have been handed down prison sentences in connection with a multimillion-dollar telemarketing fraud scheme that preyed on over a thousand victims across the nation. The most recent sentencing on July 16 involved Brian Hopkins, a 62-year-old from Chandler, Arizona, who received 21 months in prison and faces the order to pay more than $1.8 million in restitution, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Hopkins, who entered a guilty plea for mail fraud, conspiring to defraud the United States, and falsifying a tax return, is only the latest in a string of conspirators affiliated with the scheme to be sentenced. His accomplices, Richard Kuhlmann, Jr. and David Bartlett, also faced the judicial reckoning over the past year. Kuhlmann, aged 58 from Tempe, was sentenced on May 30, to 42 months in prison and was ordered to pay more than $2.1 million in restitution for his role in the fraudulent plot, as reported by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Their operation ran an Arizona-based telemarketing company, GTT Financial, which had initially offered services to assist people with reducing credit card interest rates. Unsuspecting individuals who found success in lowering their interest rates through GTT were then targeted by the co-conspirators. Employees of GTT Financial, including the 54-year-old Scottsdale resident Bartlett who was sentenced on November 24, 2024, to 24 months in prison, pitched a deceitful "sales lead" investment scam to these customers. Victims were coaxed into buying "sales leads" for a purported $1 each, being promised a share of the commission GTT Financial would allegedly earn from their leads, as detailed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
In stark contrast to what was pitched, the "sales lead" investment was illusory; no such opportunity actually existed. The co-conspirators and their employees pocketed the money, fleecing victims of over $10 million between 2014 and 2019 for a nonexistent investment. The IRS Criminal Investigation Phoenix Field Office led the inquiry that uncovered the far-reaching fraudulent scheme, with Assistant U.S. Attorneys Raymond Woo and Matthew Doyle orchestrating the prosecution, as per the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
