Telemarketers Sentenced To Prison Terms - Chattanooga Times Free Press (TN) - November 25, 1996 - page B1

November 25, 1996 | Chattanooga Times Free Press (TN) | RONNIE MOORE Free Press Staff Writer | Page B1

A former owner and operator of Continental Distributing Co., guilty of illegal telemarketing activities from late
1993 until January 1995, today was sentenced to 80 months in federal prison and was ordered to pay
$4,638,564 in restitution to victims. U.S. District Judge R. Allan Edgar imposed the sentence on Craig Heaps.
Heaps had entered guilty pleas to more than four dozen telemarketing-related violations earlier this year.
"I'm humiliated and embarrassed to be standing here today, to have lowered myself to this level," Heaps told
the judge. "I have remorse for the people involved in the case. I have hurt my family more than myself.
Fortunately, I still have a wife and two children who love me." Judge Edgar made one of the conditions of the
sentence that Heaps not be employed as a telemarketer after his release from prison without permission of
his probation officer. In a related case, Richard Simpkins, who pleaded guilty to six telemarketing-related
federal violations in connection with his employment with Continental Distributing Co., was ordered to serve
two years in prison and pay $256,391 in restitution to victims. In a separate case, Judge Edgar sentenced Carol
Hargiss to 16 months in prison and ordered her to pay $37,197 restitution to victims of her activities. She
pleaded guilty earlier to two violations of wire fraud laws and is to report to prison on Jan. 6.

CITATION (TURABIAN STYLE)

Free Press Staff Writer, RONNIE MOORE. "Telemarketers Sentenced To Prison Terms." Chattanooga Times Free Press (TN) ,
November 25, 1996: B1. NewsBank: Access World News. https://infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/news/document-view?
p=AWNB&docref=news/13F5E17AA6E13B58.
Copyright 1996, 2012, Chattanooga Times Free Press.