Harrisburg Man Sentenced To Prison For Odometer Tampering

HARRISBURG – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced on July 10, 2024, Earnest Fry, 49, of Harrisburg, was sentenced to 30 months’ imprisonment following his conviction for odometer tampering and forging vehicle titles.  Fry was also ordered to pay victims more than $47,000 in restitution, $700 in assessments and to serve three years on supervised release following his term of imprisonment.  Fry previously pleaded guilty to the offenses. According to United States Attorney Gerard M. Karam, just months after Fry was released from state prison for burglary and theft offenses in October 2018, and while on parole, he devised a scheme to purchase used cars, alter the cars’ true mileages by replacing or resetting their odometers and then sell the vehicles online to unsuspecting customers who paid inflated prices for vehicles they might not otherwise have bought.  In addition, Fry altered or forged the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania titles to multiple vehicles he sold by causing the titles to reflect false, lower mileages. Fry altered the odometers on at least 55 used cars he sold and rolled back more than five million miles on the vehicles.  In some cases, Fry caused the odometers to be rolled back by nearly 200,000 miles. Fry’s offenses not only caused victims to pay far more for the cars than they were worth, but created the risk that buyers would incur additional losses due to likely increased maintenance costs, excessive insurance premiums and other unanticipated expenses.