You might say his brazenness was electric.
A Vermont man has been sentenced to four years in prison for duping Tesla Inc. into delivering five high-end cars to him without payment and then selling three of them at knockdown prices, pocketing hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Federal prosecutors said Michael Gonzalez, 34, of Shelburne, Vt., figured out a loophole in Tesla’s payment system that allowed him to take possession of $560,000 worth of high-end Tesla automobiles that he didn’t intend to pay for. He later sold three of the vehicles to unwitting buyers for a total of $231,900.
After Gonzalez was unable to secure the title for one of the cars, a $153,000 Tesla Model X, prosecutors said he drove the car onto a frozen section of Lake Champlain and set it on fire, then filed an insurance claim.
Gonzalez pleaded guilty to five counts of possessing and disposing of stolen vehicles in April, just days before a trial was set to begin in the case. As part of his plea deal, Gonzalez agreed to pay Tesla $493,000 in restitution and to forfeit his $231,900 in profits to the government.
“Michael took full responsibility for his actions,” Gonzalez’s attorney, Chandler Matson, said. “He showed true remorse and commitment to restitution and respect for the justice system.”
A low-wattage scam
Investigators say Gonzalez’s scheme was simple: He entered bank details into Tesla’s online payment portal that were attached to accounts that had little or no money in them.
Prosecutors said Tesla delivered the cars and certificates of ownership to Gonzalez in Vermont without waiting for the transactions to be completed. It was not until days later that Tesla received notice that the accounts Gonzalez had provided had insufficient funds.
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Prosecutors said Gonzalez first hit upon his scheme in September 2018, when he placed an order on Tesla’s website for a $58,000 Model 3. Gonzalez made a deposit of $2,500, and when the car was ready for delivery the next month, he provided Tesla with bank information for accounts that didn’t have enough money to cover the balance.
Tesla nonetheless delivered the vehicle to Gonzalez in Vermont and gave him a certificate of ownership, which allowed him to obtain the car’s title and register it with the Vermont department of motor vehicles. A week later, Tesla received notice that Gonzalez’s account had insufficient funds to complete the transaction.
By the end of December, prosecutors said, Gonzalez had sold the vehicle to a used-car dealer for $42,000.
Over the following year, prosecutors said Gonzalez repeated the scheme four more times, each time for a Model X worth around $150,000. In two cases, he entered the name of a girlfriend or ex-girlfriend as the buyer instead of his own, according to court papers. He was able to sell two of the cars on Craigslist and eBay for $108,000 and $97,000, respectively.
In one case, Tesla did not provide Gonzalez with a certificate of ownership, which made it impossible for him to title or resell the car. So he drove the vehicle onto a frozen part of Lake Champlain, purportedly to go ice fishing, and set it on fire, prosecutors said.
He later filed an insurance claim, but given the unusual circumstances of the incident, the insurance company asked Gonzalez to come for an in-person “examination under oath,” during which he was required to produce the vehicle’s title. Gonzalez failed to appear for the interview, according to court documents.
In his final attempt to steal a Model X, prosecutors said that Gonzalez sped away from the men who had been sent to repossess the car, nearly hitting one of them. He then stashed the car in a storage unit in Vermont.
Soon after, Gonzalez was arrested on a separate federal charge for allegedly lying on an application for a federal firearms license, in which he stated he was not facing any criminal charges, even though he had an open case against him in state court for aggravated assault with a weapon.
While in detention, prosecutors said, Gonzalez was recorded telling his girlfriend over the phone about where the car was hidden and about his intent to sell it when he got out of custody. Upon his release, he moved to sell the car to a buyer in New Hampshire, but police were able to intercept it as it was being delivered.
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