Former executives of Wellco, a US-based footwear manufacturer, pleaded guilty in January to either conspiracy to commit wire fraud or smuggling goods into the United States. The charges stem from the guilty parties’ scheme to manufacture boot components in China, destined for US military contracts and then assemble and pass them off as US made goods, in violation of the Berry Amendment which requires textile products to be produced domestically from US materials.
Recently, most of the conspirators were sentenced.
The former CEO of Wellco, Vincent Lee Ferguson of Knoxville, TN, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. He has yet to be sentenced.
Former Sr VP of Sales, Matthew Lee Ferguson of Geneva, IL, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Sentenced to six months in prison.
Former Marketing Director, Kerry Joseph Ferguson of Houston, TX, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Sentenced to six months in prison.
Former Wellco Operations Manager, Stephanie Lynn (Ferguson) Kaemmerer of Knoxville, TN, pleaded guilty to smuggling goods into the United States. Sentenced to five years probation.
Former VP of Govt Contracting, Neil Streeter of Warren, MA, pleaded guilty to smuggling goods into the US. Sentenced to five years probation.
Former Dir of Distribution and Logistics, Matthew Harrison Martland, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting the altering of country of origin marks. Maryland was sentenced to six months probation.
The current ownership of Wellco, Original Footwear Holdings, also owns Altama and cooperated with the government throughout the investigation. Altama is an SSD advertiser.
Tags: Wellco
All of these idiots should be shot by a firing squad.
I was just thinking about this the other day, thanks for following up!
I remember reading about this before and recall that they were telling employees to put Made int he USA labels on stuff that was not and threatening them if they didn’t. This is the lowest of the low. I hope they get what they deserve.
Let’s hear it for nepotism! Maybe if there had been one “outsider” this never would have made it past the idea stage.