A former manager of Consol Energy's land management department will spend 30 months in federal prison for stealing $440,000 from the company in gas royalties through a leasing scheme in West Virginia and Illinois.
U.S. District Judge David Cercone on Wednesday imposed that term on Scott D. Hamilton, 38, formerly of Baden, Beaver County, and ordered him to pay a $5,000 fine.
Hamilton had waived indictment in November and pleaded guilty to mail fraud, after which he paid the full amount in restitution.
Prosecutors charged him directly by information in September with 60 counts after an investigation by U.S. postal inspectors.
As general manager of land records for Consol in 2009, he set up a fake company and then supplied bogus names, in addition to forging a notary's signature, to transfer Consol's interest in parcels of land in Christian County, Ill., and Fayette County, W.Va., to his fake corporation.
Companies that handled the gas and oil royalties for the parcels mailed checks to the dummy company, which Hamilton ran out of a post office box in Washington County. He then deposited the checks in an account he had opened in the name of his firm. The mailed checks constituted the mail fraud charges.
Torsten Ove: tove@post-gazette.com.
First Published: March 26, 2015, 11:47 a.m.