3 Indicted in Scheme Using Cellular Phones

Three men have been indicted on charges of conspiring to distribute devices that allow calls to be made without charge on cellular phones. In the first federal indictments involving such telephone mechanisms, Dennis Mercer Allen, 33; Kenneth Steven Baily, 41, and Robert Dewayne Sutton, 36, were charged with a total of five counts of conspiracy to produce “counterfeit access devices.”

The charges, filed in Los Angeles, stem in part from Allen’s alleged attempt to sell an informant five counterfeit integrated circuits, which function as memory erasers in the phones, for a total of $2,500 in February, 1989.

Sutton is accused of making the devices, and, in a separate indictment, Bailey is charged with producing the mechanisms. If convicted, the men face maximum sentences ranging from seven to 15 years in prison, prosecutors said.