A former Division of Justice contractor who admitted stealing and reselling hundreds of government-issued cell telephones was sentenced Tuesday to slightly greater than a 12 months in federal jail after prosecutors stated he blew a lot of the cash on playing.
Javan King, 42, of Laurel, Maryland, labored as an info expertise contractor within the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division. Investigators stated he used that place to order telephones the division didn’t really need, then quietly bought them to cellphone resellers for money. Prosecutors estimated the scheme price the federal government greater than $1.3 million and generated roughly the identical quantity in private funds to King.
Justice Division contractor luxurious spending and playing fueled cellphone fraud
According to prosecutors, the operation ran from 2021 by means of 2025 and expanded after the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted regular oversight contained in the division. Court filings stated the departure of one other worker left King with “full management of the system administration course of.”
Investigators stated King repeatedly submitted faux requests for presidency telephones, claiming they had been supposed for incoming attorneys, political appointees, or newly employed staff. In a single instance highlighted by prosecutors, King requested 164 new iPhone 15 traces in June 2025, together with 15 labeled solely as “further.”
The Justice Division permitted 163 of these telephones by means of AT&T, and the units had been shipped by FedEx to King at DOJ workplaces in Washington, in line with charging paperwork. Prosecutors stated he then bought at the very least 162 of them to a Tennessee reseller for $170 every.
Courtroom data present King in the end bought about 4,700 telephones to at the very least 9 completely different reselling firms. One purchaser alone bought greater than 3,200 units and paid King over $950,000 by means of PayPal accounts related to the scheme.
Investigators additionally found that King used a private Yahoo e-mail account to rearrange gross sales and shipments. By the point federal brokers searched the account, most of the messages had already been deleted, although prosecutors later recovered copies from one of many resellers.
When one reseller questioned how he obtained such numerous telephones, King tried to clarify it away. “I assume that my subject is, I buy unclaimed storage models that haven’t been paid as my career,” King wrote within the message cited by prosecutors.
The fraud unraveled in August 2025 after a girl in Kentucky contacted the Justice Division as a result of an iPhone she bought on-line was nonetheless tied to the company.
Throughout a January 2026 assembly with prosecutors, King admitted what he had executed and acknowledged that he had spent practically the entire cash, “most of it on playing, particularly at MGM casinos and FanDuel,” in line with the federal government’s sentencing memo. Prosecutors additionally stated he used the proceeds for holidays, non-public college tuition, and a $92,000 Vary Rover bought shortly earlier than he misplaced his job.
“King’s theft of hundreds of presidency telephones was a brazen betrayal of the general public belief that drained taxpayers of greater than one million {dollars},” U.S. Lawyer Pirro stated in a press release. “He then squandered the stolen cash on playing, luxurious holidays, and a high-end automobile. He’ll now be required to repay the very funds he siphoned from the American taxpayer and serve a jail sentence for his crimes.”
King pleaded responsible February 10 to 1 rely of mail fraud earlier than the U.S. District Decide Jia M. Cobb. Prosecutors pushed for a two-year jail sentence, arguing he had remodeled the DOJ cellphone procurement system into “a private slush fund generator.”
Cobb sentenced him to 12 months and sooner or later in jail, adopted by two years of supervised launch. King was additionally ordered to repay $1,319,172.85. Courtroom filings present he has attended Gamblers Nameless conferences whereas on pretrial launch and advised investigators he has been making an attempt to stop playing.
Featured picture: U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation through WikiCommons / CC BY-SA 4.0
