9 men charged with scamming nearly $5M from mill

Nine men have been arraigned on federal fraud charges accusing them of tricking a Rome paper mill into paying $4.8 million for "phantom loads" of timber.

The defendants are accused of scamming the Temple-Inland paper mill from 2004 to 2006. Eight of the men were arraigned on Monday.

According to the indictment, Aaron Freeman worked as a scale house operator at the mill and learned how to manipulate the computer system to produce two weight readings when a single truck passed through the mill's scale.

One reading would be the weight of timber actually delivered and the other would be for a phantom load. Freeman then allegedly recruited truck drivers to take credit for the phantom loads and share the profits.

They were charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

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Information from: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, http://www.ajc.com