A Laurel man who worked as an information technology contractor for the U.S. Department of Justice was sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison for stealing more than 4,800 government cell phones and profiting from their resale. The sentence was handed down following his guilty plea to mail fraud in U.S. District Court.
The former contractor, Javan King, admitted to submitting inflated mobile device orders from 2021 to 2025 while employed by the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division. Prosecutors said King caused the department to purchase thousands of phones it did not need, which were then shipped directly to him. King sold the devices to phone resellers and earned more than $1.3 million from these transactions.
Federal officials detailed how King used the stolen funds for personal expenses, including gambling at casinos and online platforms, luxury vacations, private school tuition, and a down payment on a high-end vehicle. The DOJ suffered a financial loss beyond the value of the phones due to ongoing fees paid to AT&T for unnecessary phone lines linked to the scheme.
The fraud came to public attention after a private citizen in Kentucky bought an iPhone online that still belonged to the DOJ and reported it. The Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General launched an investigation, which led to King's indictment and prosecution.
Along with his prison term, King was ordered to pay restitution exceeding $1.3 million and to serve two years of supervised release. Federal prosecutors had sought a longer sentence, reflecting the scale of the breach of public trust.