Former CEO of Illinois Computer Services Firm Sentenced to 13 Years in Federal Prison for Orchestrating $9 Million Fraud Schemes (Chicago, IL) — The former Chief Executive Officer of an Illinois computer services company has been sentenced to 13 years in federal prison for orchestrating fraud schemes that bilked a global telecommunications provider and two financial companies out of a combined $9 million.

DAVID GODWIN, 59, of Germantown Hills, Ill., pleaded guilty in 2018 to a wire fraud charge. U.S. District Judge Edmond E. Chang imposed the prison sentence Thursday after a hearing in federal court in Chicago.

The sentence was announced by John R. Lausch, Jr., United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; and Emmerson Buie, Jr., Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Office of the FBI. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission provided valuable assistance. The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Steven J. Dollear and John D. Mitchell.

Godwin served as CEO of ContinuityX Solutions Inc., a computer-services company based in Metamora, Ill. From 2011 to 2013, Godwin orchestrated fraud schemes that bilked the global telecommunications provider out of more than $3 million and two financial companies out of $6 million.

In the first phase of the scheme, Godwin and ContinuityX’s Chief Financial Officer, ANTHONY ROTH, created false documentation to fraudulently inflate the financial condition of companies they had approached to purchase services from the global telecommunications provider, causing the global firm to approve the sales and pay ContinuityX millions in commissions for having procured new customers. To further the scheme, Godwin and a ContinuityX sales representative, JOHN COLETTI, arranged conference calls in which Coletti fraudulently posed as an employee of the global provider.

In the second phase of the scheme, Godwin worked with Coletti to fraudulently obtain $6 million from a factoring agreement with the two victim financing companies. Godwin secured the agreement after submitting false documentation claiming that a China-based company owed ContinuityX $8 million per month in receivables. Godwin and Coletti arranged conference calls in which Coletti fraudulently posed as an employee of the China-based company to falsely assure the two victim companies that the accounts receivables were legitimate and that payment of the receivables was forthcoming.

Roth, of Upton, Mass., pleaded guilty to wire fraud and is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 7, 2021, at 1:00 p.m.

Coletti, of Canyon Country, Calif., pleaded guilty to a false statement charge and was sentenced in 2019 to two and a half years in federal prison.

Former CEO of Illinois Computer Services Firm Sentenced to 13 Years in Federal Prison for Orchestrating $9 Million Fraud Schemes