If New Yorks Nassau County District
Attorney Kathleen Rice gets her way, Jerry Cummings, (aka Andrew
Cummings, aka Jeremy Cummings, aka Andrew Gibbs) wont be operating
a travel business any more.
Cummings, a
citizen of Grenada who has operated a Caribbean wholesale travel
business for several years as Sunshine Vacations, Celebrity Travel
and several other variations, was arrested by investigators of the
D.A.s office for the second time in two months in Hempstead, N.Y.,
on June 27. He was charged with grand larceny and scheming to
defraud.
Cummings now
faces seven counts in connection with travel purchases that were
allegedly never delivered or payments that were not made. He was
arraigned, forced to surrender his passport and released on the
$10,000 bail he had already posted for his May 10
arrest.
In a statement
Rice said, We believe this defendant is responsible for the theft
of hundreds of thousands of dollars from vacationers, travel
agencies and credit card companies. His elaborate cons have left
people without their vacations and many times stranded or fearing
for their safety in foreign countries.
Most of the
accusations follow a similar pattern: customers paying for trips,
then discovering upon arrival at the destinations that their
payment had never made it to the hotels, transfer services,
airlines or other service providers.
Efforts by Travel
Weekly to reach Cummings or his lawyer were
unsuccessful.
Cummings claims
the problems were just errors, according to Assistant District
Attorney Justin Heiferman, who is handling the case under the
supervision of Diane Peress, chief of the Economic Crimes Bureau of
Nassau County.
He says hes just
a bad businessman, said Heiferman. But thats a lot of money. You
can only make a mistake so many times before its not a
mistake.
Cummings is also
accused of defrauding American Express out of $35,000 by opening
corporate accounts under various names and running up charges he
never paid, including more than $25,000 in charges from Celebrity
Travel to Sunshine Vacations.
Cummings arrest
on May 10 was on charges that he defrauded 50 clients of Windsor,
Ontario-based Magic Carpet Travel out of $40,000 worth of hotel
reservations. After his arrest, he reopened as Destinations
Unlimited, about 10 miles away from his previous location, said
Peress.
In April 2005,
Cummings was arrested on charges of defrauding American Express out
of $182,000, based on cumulative chargebacks from customers who
claimed they did not receive their travel arrangements from
Sunshine Vacations. The charges were dismissed, but a number of
incidents remain under investigation, according to
Peress.
Last weeks arrest
followed an investigation into a number of incidents involving
Cummings reported by travel agents, culminating in the issuance of
a search warrant for Cummings current place of business in
Hempstead.
By documenting
each problem, we can establish that it is not possible that that
many people didnt have hotel rooms, documents, air fare, etc., by
accident, said Peress. Theres a cumulative effect. The old
dog-ate-my-homework excuse isnt working anymore.
To contact reporter David Cogswell, send e-mail to [email protected].