George Herman Ruth Sentenced For Mail Fraud

A Morristown man will spend the next decade in prison for a scheme where he attempted to defraud $250,000 from class action lawsuits. 70 year old George Herman Ruth had previously been convicted and sentenced to 56 months in prison for trying to defraud the US Government. While he was on probation for that crime, he began a scheme where he submitted hundreds of fraudulent claim forms to different class action administrators.
In most cases, George Herman Ruth used the names of former Major League Baseball players to submit his false claims. According to federal prosecutors, Ruth opened post office boxes throughout northeast Tennessee to receive mail from class action administrators. Ruth told his probation officer he did not have a post office box, when in fact he had 13 post office boxes scattered across northeast Tennessee.
Ruth also opened a bank account in the name of a fake business called “El Mundo Marketing” to deposit any payments from class action administrators. Ruth used proceeds from the fraud scheme to travel, to gamble, and to continue the scam. Ruth plead guilty recently in federal court to twenty-five separate counts of mail fraud. He was sentenced Wednesday in US Court in Greeneville to 11 years in prison.