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BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — A vehicle maintenance supervisor for the U.S. Postal Service pleaded guilty Wednesday to charges he defrauded the government of more than $300,000 in a billing kickback scheme, U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance, announced.

Cedric Nalls, 42, of Bir­mingham agreed to pay $330,000 in restitution to the Postal Service. His sen­tencing is scheduled for Aug. 31.

Nalls, a supervisor at the Postal Service Vehicle Main­tenance Facility in Birming­ham, and vendors William Mark Payton, 44, of Besse­mer and Allen Joseph Law, 38, of Birmingham were charged in March with sub­mitting fraudulent invoices and hiding payment from the invoices.

Payton, who owned Bill Payton Automotive, and Law, who owned The Paint House, both pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge in May.

According to court re­cords, this is how Nalls, Pay­ton and Law conducted their conspiracy: Payton and Law both pro­vided maintenance work on Postal Service vehicles in Birmingham.

Nalls had access to Postal Service credit card numbers and provided the numbers to venders so they could re­quest payment from U.S. Bank Voyager Fleet Systems Inc., the Houston company that managed billing for the facility.

Nalls arranged with Pay­ton and Law to provide them with those credit card numbers so they could seek payment for work never done. They would share a portion of those payments with Nalls.

Nalls faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Payton and Law face a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

“The United States Postal Service trusted Nalls to hon­estly select and manage the private vendors who re­paired and maintained the fleet of Postal Service vehi­cles in Birmingham,” Vance said.

“Instead, Nalls abused that trust and conspired with two vendors to steal about $330,000 through re­peated deception over a three-year period. But, as with other abusers of posi­tions of public trust, Nalls will be punished for his greed,” she said.

In other federal court news, a grand jury in Bir­mingham on Wednesday handed down indictments against the owners of two recycling businesses ac­cused of trying to avoid gov­ernment detection as they withdrew money from banks.

Danny Miles Isbell, 56, and his wife, Leila Ulmer Is­bell, 52, both of Ohatchee are accused of making 467 cash withdrawals in the amount of $9,800 — totaling more than $4.5 million — over the course of three years.

Banks are required to re­port currency transactions in excess of $10,000 to the federal government.

The government is asking that the Isbells, who own a Pell City battery recycling and transportation busi­ness, forfeit $4.5 million that they contend was “proceeds of illegal activity,” according to Peggy Sanford, spokeswoman for Vance.

They could each face five years in prison and $250,000 fine. Those sentences could increase to 10 years and $500,000 if the withdrawals were part of another crime.

Jerry Dwayne Lang, 45, of Somerville, the owner of a recycling business, was also charged with “structuring currency transactions . . . to evade reporting require­ments of U.S. banks.” He is accused of making 85 with­drawals over eight months for a total of more than $600,000.

Lang faces the same sen­tence as the Isbells and the government seeks to have Lang forfeit $636,529.

Sanford said the two cases are unrelated.

The indictments do not state why the suspects would have wanted to keep the withdrawals from the government, but Sanford noted that “structuring is, it­self, a crime.”

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