Ex-Roadrunner dispatch manager sentenced to 18 months for wire fraud

December 6, 2023

A federal judge has sentenced a Kansas woman to 18 months in prison for stealing nearly $113,000 from Roadrunner Temperature Controlled, the trucking company where she worked for nearly three years.

Amy Shepherd, 44, of Wichita, Kansas, was sentenced Friday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska after pleading guilty in August to one count of wire fraud.

U.S. District Court Judge Brian Buescher has ordered Shepherd to serve three years of supervised release and pay more than $112,000 in restitution after she is released from prison.

According to the indictment, from July 2016 through June 21, 2019, Shepherd worked remotely from her home in various roles, including as a customer service manager, a driver business leader manager and finally as a dispatch lead manager during her employment at Nebraska-based Roadrunner Temperature Controlled.

In August 2020, FreightWaves reported that Roadrunner Transportation Systems Inc. had sold its reefer division, Roadrunner Temperature Controlled, to Laurel Oak Capital Partners.

Shepherd didn’t work alone

Johnny Bradford II, 52, of Lancaster, California, drove for the refrigerated division of Roadrunner from Feb. 28, 2017, through May 4, 2018.

At the time, Roadrunner used EFS, an electronic wire transfer service, to issue driver cash advances for equipment repairs, trailer washouts or to pay lumper fees to third-party workers to unload its trailers.

Prosecutors allege that beginning in February 2018, Shepherd used her position as a dispatcher lead manager to fraudulently generate advances and enter EFS check codes, which she then sent to Bradford over a 16-month period.

According to court documents, Bradford would cash the checks at vendor establishments, then he would “use Western Union to send portions of the money he received from the fraudulent driver advances back to Shepherd.”

It’s unclear in court documents how Shepherd continued to send electronic wire transfers to Bradford for a light repair for $300 in February 2019 and for a trailer alternator costing nearly $827 in June 2019 through Roadrunner’s accounting system nearly a year after the truck driver was no longer employed by the refrigerated carrier.

Bradford pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in September and is slated to be sentenced on Dec. 14.

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