Frankfort man sentenced to prison for selling stolen electronics through Crestwood business

FRANKFORT, Ill. - A Frankfort man was sentenced to federal prison last week for selling stolen items through his business.

Ziad I. Zayed pleaded guilty last year to a federal conspiracy charge, prosecutors said.

Zayed used his store, Crestwood Electronics Inc., and other businesses to purchase stolen electronic devices and other merchandise, repackage the items and then sell them to out-of-state or out-of-country buyers.

Some of the items bought and sold by Zayed included laptops, fitness-tracking devices and digital cameras. Prosecutors said that some of those items were stolen from railcars near Chicago. 

"By providing a marketplace to sell stolen goods, the defendant has incentivized thieves to steal and rob, whether that’s off tractor trailers sitting on railcars or phones from innocent victims," said Assistant U.S. Attorneys Barry Jonas and Ann Marie E. Ursini during the government’s sentencing memorandum.

Last Wednesday, a judge sentenced Zayed to two years and four months in federal prison and ordered him to pay more than $1.3 million in restitution.