MSP Gone Bad: The Compulinx Saga

Terrence Chalk is a well-known man in the channel. His company, Compulinx Managed Services in White Plains, N.Y., received Ingram Micro's 2004 VentureTech Network Spotlight Award. By 2006, Compulinx was operating more than 300 servers in four separate data centers. Federal prosecutors, however, allege that as early as 2001, Chalk was engaged in a conspiracy with his nephew to falsify loan applications using personal information he stole from his employees and clients.

According to a federal indictment filed in New York's Southern District Federal Court, Chalk began implementing his scheme in October 2003, when he allegedly filed two separate $25,000 loan applications at a Manhattan Bank in which he falsely listed two different people as corporate officers and guarantors. Over the next three years, he allegedly filed three similar applications at separate New York State banks, each time falsely claiming a different individual as a guarantor. Prosecutors also claim that between 2003 and 2006, Chalk made multiple credit-card charges on accounts belonging to others. All told, Chalk allegedly applied for $275,000 in loans and lines of credit, and made more than $100,000 in fraudulent credit card charges.

Chalk was arraigned on Oct. 31, 2006, and charged with one count of conspiracy, one count of credit card fraud and five counts of making false statements to a financial institution. His bail bond was set at $250,000; if convicted on all counts, he faces a maximum of 165 years in prison and $5.5 million in fines. On April 22, a federal district judge denied Chalk's motion to be released on his own recognizance. As of this writing, he remains in detention with no set trial date.