March 4, 2008 -- The man prosecutors believe was the moving force behind a Kingston-based telemarketing scheme that cheated aging Americans out of their life savings has pleaded guilty to being a party to the fraud conspiracy and violating two conditions of his pretrial release.

Darrell Dorsey, 51, had been out of custody for virtually all of the past year since fraud charges were first laid against him. He was arrested Jan. 21, however, and held at Quinte Detention Centre on allegations that he failed to notify police of a change of address and had contact with one of his co-accused, 22-year-old Amanda Wyer - his Kingston girlfriend when the OPP Anti-Rackets squad broke up the four-year-old telemarketing scam in March 2007.

Dorsey pleaded guilty to all three charges yesterday on the understanding that his sentencing on the conspiracy charge would be put over to June, at which time assistant Crown attorney Priscilla Christie said she'll be asking for "substantial restitution" of $253,624.

In the meantime, Dorsey has been sentenced to time served on the violations of his undertaking and will be released again from custody while sentencing on the main charge is pending.

Christie told Judge Rommel Masse that police first learned about the telemarketing scheme through a tip to Crime Stoppers. She told Masse the caller identified the people behind it, how it worked and where the money went.

OPP detectives subsequently visited a Western Union outlet located in the A&P store at Bath and Gardiners roads, she told the judge, and showed Dorsey's photograph to the head clerk.

Christie said the woman recognized Dorsey, but knew him as Cranford York, and she told police he collected money from the outlet daily. The OPP Anti-Rackets squad put surveillance on Dorsey in February 2006, according to Christie, and watched him making the rounds of various Money Mart outlets in the city, as well as the Wellington Street Money Exchange. They also witnessed him meeting with several other people who were later charged in the fraud conspiracy, including his 22-year-old son, Darrell Dorsey Weiss.

In March 2006, after conducting a number of "garbage grabs" to establish the identities of the suspects in the fraud conspiracy, she told the judge, Anti-Rackets investigators moved in, executing search warrants simultaneously on five residences and two motor vehicles in Kingston to collect evidence. They also subsequently located two Toronto "drops," addresses where victims' money orders had been directed.

Christie told the judge the telemarketers had been targeting American seniors, working from "scripts" over the phone to pressure them into buying into promises of loans, lottery prizes, U.S. treasury bills and bonds. Once hooked, the victims were told there were advance fees they had to pay and were convinced to send money orders and money transfers to cover those costs. None of the victims received any of the items promised.

Christie told the judge that police determined one Massachusetts woman gave the telemarketers $113,160 and a man in Michigan handed over $16,515.89, while a woman from Washington State was taken for $14,949.

Investigators estimate the telemarketing ring also took between $25,000 and $50,000 from a Washington, D.C., man, but were only able to verify $4,506 of the $80,000 a California victim claims to have sent them. Christie said he told investigators the scheme drove him into bankruptcy.