VIRGINIA
A federal judge sentenced a former staff member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation on Friday to three years and two months in prison for a wire fraud scheme involving three elderly women, officials announced.
U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III, of Virginia, ordered Robert Lee Foster, 65, formerly of Falls Church, Virginia, to forfeit $499,622.54 and pay $503,003.37 in restitution as part of his sentence.
Foster pleaded guilty on July 31, 2015.
Foster admitted, as part of his plea agreement, that between 2008 and May 2015, he concocted a scheme to fraudulently obtain approximately $500,000 from three women in their 60s and 70s.
Foster admitted that he gained the victims’ trust and confidence, after which he made various false statements to the victims to convince them to send him money.
He told his victims he needed to borrow money to pay for litigation costs and business expenses that did not exist and for foreign travel that did not occur. Foster promised to repay the victims from large sums of money he claimed he was about to receive, which was another lie, according to Foster’s statements.