Pilot Corp. and Chief Executive Officer Jimmy Haslam have been sued by a Wisconsin trucking firm over federal allegations that Pilot Flying J truck-stop business cheated customers on fuel rebates.
The complaint, filed at the U.S. courthouse in Chicago on Thursday by Edis Trucking Inc. of Franksville, Wis., follows allegations lodged against Pilot and company executives last month by an FBI agent seeking court permission to search Pilot offices in Knoxville, Tenn. Haslam is also the majority owner of the Cleveland Browns.
U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Robert Root alleged “a scheme to defraud executed by various Pilot employees to deceptively withhold diesel fuel rebates and discounts from Pilot customers.”
Root’s 120-page affidavit, unsealed by U.S. Magistrate Judge H. Bruce Guyton in Knoxville on April 18, was cited in Edis’ complaint, which accuses the company, Haslam, President Mark Hazelwood and other executives of racketeering.
“They engaged in repetitious and systematic mail fraud, interstate wire fraud and/or foreign wire fraud,” Edis alleged in its complaint seeking class status on behalf of all people and entities that were party to fuel rebate and discount contracts with the defendants from January 2005 to the present.