A Kentucky auto dealer rolled back mileage readings on vehicles to overcharge customers, a federal grand jury has charged.
The grand jury indicted Randy Huff and a former employee, Donnie Wilson, this week on charges of wire fraud, conspiracy to commit odometer tampering and odometer tampering.
Huff owned Huff’s Auto Sales in Beaver Dam and South Side Auto Sales in Bowling Green, and Wilson worked at the Bowling Green lot from 2016 to 2020, according to the indictment.
Huff, aided by Wilson and others not named in the charges, is charged with taking part in a scheme to defraud people by reducing the mileage on vehicles, “thereby inducing both the immediate and subsequent buyers of the vehicles to pay more for the motor vehicles than they would have paid if they had known the vehicles’ true mileages,” the indictment says.
At the direction of Huff, mechanics who worked for him took odometers out of cars, pickup trucks and SUVs and replaced them with odometers that had lower mileage readings, the indictment charges.
Huff, Wilson and others acting on Huff’s orders then allegedly altered the titles on the vehicles to show the lower odometer readings.
The scheme reduced the mileage by more than 100,000 miles in some cases cited in the indictment, which can make a big difference in the price of a vehicle.
In one case, for instance, the mileage on a 2010 Nissan Xterra was dropped from 211,184 to 71,835.
The average cost to buy one version of that SUV with 71,835 miles from a dealer would be $12,975 in the Lexington area, compared to $6,675 at 211,184 miles, according to the National Association of Automobile Dealers.
The indictment listed 22 vehicles on which the mileage allegedly was rolled back as part of the scheme.
The conspiracy allegedly took place between June 2018 and January 2023.
The wire fraud charge against Huff and Wilson carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison for a conviction.
Police in Owensboro charged a used-car dealer and a salesman with odometer fraud and other crimes in April.