ST. GEORGE, Utah, April 16, 2024 (Gephardt Daily) — Owners of a Saratoga Springs guns and ammo business have been indicted for defrauding customers, allegedly pocketing more than $500,000 meant for Ukrainian first responders.
The indictment was unsealed this week by the federal court in St. George following the arrest of a husband and wife in Utah County after a federal grand jury returned an indictment April 9, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Utah.
John Earl Donaldson, 31, and his wife, Carlie Elizabeth Winters, 29, conspired together from December 2021 through January 2023 to illegally obtain money from customers of their company, Urban Armz, LLC, according to the allegations. The indictment charges the duo with financial crimes in defrauding customers and financial firms of over $600,000.
In April 2022, a company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, paid Urban Armz $300,000 through wire transfers for body armor it intended to donate to Ukraine first responders in war zones, prosecutors said.
“Urban Armz never delivered the body armor.” In June 2022, a nonprofit paid Urban Armz $217,098.98 for night vision goggles, thermal optics, and other equipment for Ukrainian first responders serving in war zones.
“Again, Urban Armz did not deliver the equipment and instead Donaldson and Winters spent the money on unrelated parties, shopping and other things.”
As alleged in the indictment, Donaldson falsely represented that he could sell large quantities of ammunition to potential customers for competitively low prices. In December 2021, a customer wired $90,000 to Urban Armz for 300,000 rounds of ammunition.
Urban Armz never delivered the ammunition. “Instead, Donaldson and Winters spent the customer’s funds on transfers to unrelated parties, shopping, credit card payments, and other withdrawals.”
In furtherance of the fraud, the Urban Armz website claimed that the business maintained an office in St. George, when it did not. The website also falsely claimed that the company clients included the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, prosecutors said. The case is being investigated by the FBI Salt Lake City Field Office.
