Dana Douglas Rinkin could be imprisoned for the next three decades for defrauding California communications company Cisco out of $350,000 in computer equipment, which he resold over the Internet for about $155,000.
Rinkin, originally charged with 27 counts of grand theft, eventually pleaded guilty to two grand theft charges in the middle of his jury trial in September.
On Tuesday, 4th District Judge Darla Williamson sentenced Rinkin to consecutive 14-year prison terms for each grand theft charge. Rinkin must serve at least two years before he can ask for parole.
Prosecutors say Rinkin’s scam was complex. They say he worked out of homes in Eagle and Star as a network engineer and provided technical Internet services for various companies across the U.S.
That is how he got access to warranty information for those companies’ Cisco computer and network systems, prosecutors said.
They say Rinkin fraudulently obtained Cisco routers and switches — devices that connect computers in a network — with bogus warranty service claims for the companies he’d done work for.
Prosecutors say Rinkin obtained the equipment from Cisco from January to September 2009 by getting Cisco to send him replacement equipment, which he sold.
Cisco officials contacted Ada County sheriff’s deputies in 2009 after discovering the scam, in part because Rinkin reported that a particular piece of Cisco equipment got lost in the mail four times in a row, Ada County Deputy Prosecutor Jonathan Medema said.
Deputies found some of the stolen equipment in Rinkin’s Star home in September 2009, along with a check for $14,000 from the sale of equipment in Rinkin’s wife’s purse, according to reports. She was not charged.
An Ada County grand jury indicted Rinkin on 33 charges (27 counts of grand theft, five counts of petit theft and one count of attempted grand theft) in February.
Rinkin originally pleaded not guilty to all the charges and took the case to a jury trial. He pleaded guilty to the two felonies after five days of testimony and before the jury got to deliberate.
In addition to the prison term, Rinkin was also ordered to pay $176,000 in restitution to Cisco, according to court records.
Patrick Orr: 377-6219
