CAMDEN — A North Wildwood man who worked as a U.S. Mint police officer was sentenced to 36 months in prison for stealing $2.4 million worth of error coins from the U.S. Mint and selling them to a California coin distributor, announced U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman.
According to Fishman, William Gray, 65, sent coins to dealer via U.S. Postal Service and Fed Ex. Gray failed to pay taxes on the proceeds of the sales. Gray pleaded guilty Sept., 2011 to two counts of an Information charging him with theft of government property and tax evasion. After his arrest, he was freed on $50,000 bail until his sentencing.
According to documents filed in the case and statements made in court, Gray admitted between June 1996 and January 2011, he was employed by the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia as a Mint police officer. Beginning in 2007, Gray would regularly take several small bags to the coining area, where Presidential $1 coins were made. The minting of the coins was a two-step process, with the initial imprinting of the obverse (heads) and reverse (tails) images and a second stamping imprinting the edge lettering. Gray said he took the Presidential coins with the missing edge lettering knowing they would be considered more valuable to coin collectors because they were considered “mint errors.”
Gray admitted he smuggled the coins from the mint and shipped them from the Rio Grande post office or a FedEx location in Egg Harbor Township to a California coin distributor.
He admitted he received approximately $2.3 million for the error coins. The coin dealer sent all payments for the coins via FedEx to Gray’s North Wildwood residence. Gray admitted he deposited the $2.4 million into his Police and Fire Federal Credit Union account.
Gray admitted that between 2007 and 2009, he failed to report the sale of the coins on his income tax return, thereby understating his tax liability by over $800,000.
In addition to a prison term, U.S. District Judge Noel L. Hillman sentenced Gray to three years of supervised release and ordered him to pay $15,208 in restitution to the U.S. Mint, forfeit $2.3 million and cooperate with the Internal Revenue Service to resolve his tax liability.
The U.S. Mint has advised it has implemented measures to improve security within all its facilities.
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