Sentencing is scheduled for next spring for a southwestern Illinois man who's admitted using schemes involving leased copy machines to defraud a school, a church and community groups.
Forty-nine-year-old Kevin Welch of Altamont pleaded guilty Monday in federal court in East St. Louis to charges of mail fraud and engaging in a fraudulent financial transaction involving more than $10,000.
Authorities say the fraud took place from 2001 to 2009.
Last year, Governor French Academy in Belleville won a $1.2 million verdict against Welch after he took copy machine lease payments from the private school and pocketed the proceeds. The school lost nearly $500,000 in machines and lease payments.
Prosecutors say he also defrauded the St. Boniface Catholic Church in Edwardsville.