With guilty plea, feds secure 64th and final conviction in magazine fraud case

The last defendant awaiting trial in a massive telemarketing magazine subscription scam that led to charges against more than 60 people nationwide pleaded guilty last week, a day before his trial was set to begin in Minneapolis.

Jeremy Wade Wilson, 42, of Fort Worth, Texas, entered guilty pleas May 28 to six counts of wire fraud and violations of the SCAMS Act, a statute focused on mail, telephone and internet frauds that often target older adults.

He admitted to scamming more than 14,000 people — including more than 200 Minnesotans — out of $4.8 million through a scheme that preyed on vulnerable adults and the elderly.

Wilson is the last defendant to plead or be found guilty among the 64 people charged in a series of indictments by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota, dating back to 2018. The U.S. Justice Department said that scam went for at least 20 years and victimized more than 100,000 people across all 50 states.

Telemarketers involved in the scheme offered to reduce the cost of existing magazine subscriptions, claiming to be calling on behalf of the victims’ magazine companies. Instead, they duped the customers into signing up for additional subscriptions they didn’t ask for and often couldn’t afford. Some of those who were defrauded were bilked out of thousands of dollars.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for Minnesota investigated and brought the case in part because of a cluster of sham companies located in the state, according to the Justice Department.

According to court documents, Wilson operated a company called Publishers Elite and ran a telemarketing call center in Arlington, Texas, from 2013 through 2019. He gave his telemarketers scripts with fraudulent sales pitches used to trick customers into signing up for the magazine subscription packages.

U.S. District Judge John Tunheim scheduled Wilson’s sentencing hearing for September 26.