Former Nebraska man sentenced for elaborate scams that cost victims $819,000

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) — A former Kearney man who conned multiple businesses and people in Nebraska out of a combined $819,000 will spend nine years in prison.

Jeffery Sikes, 43, was sentenced in federal court Tuesday for wire fraud.

From 2012 to 2014, he concocted multiple schemes and created complex fraudulent documents to fool his victims, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

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His biggest scam involved B & J Partnership, also known as Speedway Properties, a real estate developer in Lincoln.

Sikes, claiming to be a consultant for a limited liability company called Vanguard Nebraska, approached Speedway Properties.

He said he wanted to lease commercial space from the company and asked Speedway to provide $750,000 to turn the space into a lab, according to authorities.

Speedway agreed, but the U.S. Attorney’s Office said it was all a hoax.

All the documents were fake, and Vanguard didn’t exist.

The company was defrauded of $507,000, authorities said.

Sikes pleaded guilty to wire fraud in 2017, but he fled to Alabama before his sentencing.

He lived there under the alias Kenneth Allen, according to prosecutors, and was part of a group that set fire to four Walmart stores in Alabama and Mississippi.

He pleaded guilty in that case and was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Sikes will finish that sentence before he serves his prison term in the Nebraska case.

He has also been ordered to pay $819,169.96 in restitution.