Kentucky car salesman sentenced to federal prison for rolling back odometers
The owner of a Kentucky car lot who had mileage readings rolled back vehicles so he could charge customers higher prices has been sentenced to 18 months in federal prison.
The sentence for Randy Huff also included $40,000 in restitution, according to the court record.
Huff, 59, owned South Side Auto Sales in Bowling Green and Huff’s Auto Sales in Beaver Dam.
Huff admitted he had mechanics replace the odometers on cars and SUVs to show that the mileage was much lower than it actually was.
In once case, for example, the actual mileage on a 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee was 286,012, but the odometer Huff has put in it showed 111,800 miles, according to a sentencing memorandum from the prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Raymond D. McGee.
Huff’s guilty plea cited 22 examples, but a mechanic told authorities he had replaced the instrument clusters on about 80 vehicles at Huff’s direction, the memo said.
Huff had old odometers “trashed or burned,” then got new paperwork reflecting the lower mileage, according to the memo.
Huff’s attorneys, Scott C. Cox, Michael R. Mazzoli and Scott Coleman Cox, II, said in a sentencing memorandum that he had mortgaged his house to be able to pay all the restitution he owed at the time of sentencing.
The defense attorneys said Huff had guided thousands of young people as a youth sports coach in Bowling Green, and he had also been involved in charitable activities that included a program to give people free bus rides home from downtown bars and transporting homeless people to local food services and shelters.
But the prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Raymond D. McGee, said in a memo that Huff victimized people with poor credit.
The person who bought the Jeep, for instance, was in a wreck and the airbags didn’t deploy, the prosecutor said.
In another case, a man who bought a Nissan Altima that showed 64,281 fewer miles than it actually had estimated he later had to spend $10,000 on repairs.
One single mother paid cash for a 2011 Nissan Altima that developed significant mechanical problems soon after, but South Side Auto refused to make repairs even though it had said there was a warranty on the car, according to the memo.
“He took advantage of vulnerable victims and caused them financial harm,” the prosecutor said.
Huff pleaded guilty to wire fraud, conspiracy and odometer tampering.
Chief U.S District Judge Greg N. Stivers sentenced Huff on May 21 in Bowling Green.
