Airman, mom accused of stealing, selling gear
By Kris Wernowsky - Pensacola News Journal
Posted : Monday Aug 27, 2007 13:47:24 EDT

An Air Force staff sergeant and his mother face federal charges that they stole high-grade equipment used on military helicopters and sold it overseas over the Internet.

Staff Sgt. Leonard Allen Schenk, who was assigned to the 20th Special Operations Squadron at Hurlburt Field, Fla., also is charged with trying to hire an undercover agent to kill a possible prosecution witness, not publicly identified, sometime between May and June.

Schenk was scheduled for arraignment Monday before U.S. Magistrate Miles Davis on 21 charges, including racketeering, witness tampering, federal trade violations and soliciting murder.

His mother, Jerri Stringer of Picayune, Miss., is scheduled for arraignment on Tuesday.

Schenk worked as a life-support technician, building and maintaining aviation night-vision goggles, flight helmets and global-positioning equipment for the squadron’s helicopter fleet, according to the indictment.

In June 2005, Stringer established an eBay account under an assumed name and a PayPal account to collect money from eBay auctions, the indictment says.

The pair are accused of using several online aliases to conduct their online business.

Schenk stole equipment from the military base, and then, he and his mother would place the items for sale on eBay, the indictment says. Schenk would ship the items overseas, and the clients would electronically forward payment to Stringer’s PayPal account.

Once Schenk built a comfortable relationship with his customers, he sold the items directly over the Internet, without the intermediary eBay account, the indictment alleges. The customers deposited their payments in a SunTrust account, also in his mother’s name.

The indictment names three purchasers of the stolen equipment: Luc Ureel of Belgium, Carsten Schultz of Germany and Will Jeffery of New Zealand.

The indictment details e-mail correspondence between Schenk and Stringer and their clients.

“Hi Jerri. How are you? I have made business with you at the end of last year,” Ureel wrote. “You deliver a great goggle. I’m interested in a new AVS-9 OMNI 6. Do you see a possibility to get one and are you interested to ship it to Belgium?”

Schenk responded that he could provide another helmet to Ureel.

“I will gladly (take) $100 off of the selling price which is $3,500,” Schenk responded. “I would prefer a bank transfer because PayPal keeps locking up my money every time a big amount is transferred.

“We can skip right past eBay and right through everything. I sell the same items to the New Zealand fire departments for their helicopter pilots the exact same way. As a matter of fact, I have two sets available right at the moment.”

Schenk’s alleged sale of the stolen equipment continued for nearly two years through April 2007. He eventually learned federal authorities had been investigating the sales.

U.S. Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Dixie Morrow declined to comment on whether investigators had uncovered why the overseas clients purchased the equipment.

Hurlburt public affairs officials said they could not comment on the ongoing case. A spokeswoman said Schenk is still officially a member of the Air Force.

Ellie