Robert Rahrle, 35, formerly of Florida and now residing in the Northern District of New York, was sentenced last week to 100 months’ imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release, for wire fraud and tax evasion.
As part of his previously entered guilty plea, Rahrle admitted that from 2017 through 2024, he ran a fraudulent online gift basket website called iCare Gifting Solutions LLC. iCare purported to cater to families of incarcerated individuals, promising to send care packages into prisons. iCare charged hundreds of customers approximately $50 per gift basket, but never sent the gift packages.
In addition to defrauding iCare’s customers, Rahrle evaded his federal taxes. He self-prepared and filed tax returns for tax years 2017 and 2018 that falsely reported business losses and failed to report hundreds of thousands of dollars of gross receipts.
Senior United States District Judge Glenn T. Suddaby also ordered Rahrle to pay a $2,000,000 money judgment and $178,651 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service, with restitution to the individual victims of Rahrle’s fraud offence to be determined at a later date.
U.S. Attorney Sarcone said, “Driven by greed, Rahrle operated a years’ long fraud scheme scamming people out of millions of dollars. For that he will pay a high price a spend the next 8 years in federal prison. My office will vigorously pursue consumer scam artists like the defendant to protect the public.”
“Mr. Rahrle took advantage of those who wanted to help others and literally did not deliver what was promised. While care packages were left unsent, he pocketed the money with little regard of the consequences,” said Harry T. Chavis, Special Agent in Charge of IRS-CI New York.
