The former bass guitar player for the rock band, The Ataris, is headed to federal prison.
The U.S. attorney for Southern Illinois says 50-year-old Michael Davenport of Santa Barbara, California, was sentenced to seven years for defrauding thousands of would-be renters and homebuyers in southern Illinois and throughout the country from 2009 to 2016. Davenport pleaded guilty last fall to a one-count federal indictment charging him with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud.
Davenport admitted that his company, American Standard, posted ads on Craigslist listing certain houses for sale or rent, when, in fact, the properties didn't exist. American Standard charged a 199-dollar fee to access the fictitious list of houses to cover the cost of title searches and deed transfers.
American Standard's scam collected more than 25-million dollars.
Over 500 houses and 100 victims of the scam were located across 22 southern Illinois counties.