A Naperville man has been sentenced to nine years in federal prison for stealing nearly a half million dollars through a scheme that included recruiting postal employees to steal credit card information.
Federal prosecutors said thousands of people were victimized by Davey Hines’ actions as the ringleader of the group.
Hines “spent his entire adult life stealing from others or committing fraud to support his — at times — lavish lifestyle,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo.
Hines, 30, recruited female U.S. Postal Service workers — who he called his “mail ladies” — to steal credit cards from the mail, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
He was arrested in 2021 as part of “Operation Cash on Delivery,” along with at least 10 others. Hines is the first person of the group to be sentenced.
The group was accused of stealing more than 657 credit cards and charging more than $462,719 in purchases between June 2018 and December 2019, prosecutors said.
Hines activated the stolen credit cards by illegally obtaining victims’ personal identifying information, including birth dates and Social Security numbers, prosecutors said.
He pleaded guilty in July to four counts charging conspiracy, receipt of stolen mail, access device fraud and aggravated identity theft.
Prosecutors asked that Hines be sentenced to 17 years in prison, citing an extensive criminal record that included theft convictions going back to his teenage years and noting that he was on supervised released in a separate bank fraud case that he was also convicted of while he was leading the theft ring.
On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Edmond Chang handed down the 108-month sentence, which will be followed by three years probation. The judge also ordered Hines to pay restitution to his victims.
Hines’ lawyer, Beau Brindley, said the judge’s decision was a “huge victory for the defense,” since he found Hines responsible only for actual losses, not the intended losses, which prosecutors had asked him to be sentenced under.
