Police Informant Is Sentenced In Cell-Phone Scam
SEATTLE
A police informant who said he was just doing his job when he took $90,000 from a dozen Eastside residents in a cellular-phone scam in 1990, has been sentenced to almost five years in prison.
Robert Berdue, convicted in October by a King County Superior Court jury on 10 counts of forgery and one count of first-degree theft, maintained he was cooperating with a crooked businessman so he could infiltrate his world and be of use to police.
But King County Superior Court Judge Ricardo Martinez told Berdue - who had cooperated with various local, state, and federal authorities - that, aside from stealing a significant amount of money from innocent people, he allowed the lines between police work and crime to blur.
A jury found that Berdue, 30, fooled an area businessman into giving him personal financial information then used it to assume the man's identity.
Berdue used the man's excellent credit rating to lease cellular phones, faxes and copy machines. He then sold the property to other people.
He was sentenced to 57 months, the top of the standard sentencing range. He now faces sentencing on Pacific County convictions of unlawful issuance of bank checks and also may be extradited to Aurora, Colo., where he faces more forgery charges.