CHATTANOOGA - To John "Stick" Freeman, the promises to customers just made for one more game.
"We're playin' (expletive) poker with funny money, and it's liar's poker," he told Pilot Flying J's senior sales staff at one point. "Sell it to 'em the way they wanna buy. And then understand that the (expletive)'s got the ability to know what the hell you're doing to 'em. .. (Expletive) 'em early and (expletive) 'em often."
He lost the game. Freeman, Pilot's former vice president of sales, and three more former Pilot employees pleaded guilty Thursday to federal charges of mail fraud and wire fraud for bilking trucking customers across the country out of millions of dollars in promised diesel rebates.
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