A Columbiana County man is being offered the option of pleading guilty to federal mail and wire fraud charges instead of facing an indictment and prosecution for allegedly concocting schemes used to cheat six people out of more than $400,000.

A federal bill of information filed in U.S. District Court alleges that 23-year-old Paul Shockley of Madison Township carried out scams designed to make himself rich.

The most recent alleged scheme involved an online luxury item consignment store called “We Love Snobs”.

The business advertised itself as a premier online authentic luxury consignment store that offered authenticated designer merchandise at up to 95 % off retail prices, free shipping, as well as an 80/20 split to general consignors and a 70/30 split to what they called “White Glove consignors”.

Acting Assistant U.S. Attorney Carole Rendon says Shockley and others not named by prosecutors, got two people to invest in the business by convincing them that they would make millions of dollars by the end of the year.

Instead, according to the bill of information, the investor's money was used to pay for personal expenses, luxury shopping sprees, and exorbitant salaries.

Investigators say Shockley told the two investors that his family was rich, and he had personally invested his own money in the business.

A Linked-in account for “We Love Snobs” listed Shockley as the CEO, and claimed to have between 11 and 50 employees.

According to a civil lawsuit filed in Cuyahoga County, We Love Snobs abandoned its offices in the Cleveland suburb of Fairview Park last June.

Federal prosecutors also say Shockley used a similar story about having a wealthy family to perpetrate an earlier fraudulent scheme that netted him $400,000.

According to an affidavit submitted by the investigating FBI agent, it all began when a friend introduced Shockley to the couple at a wedding in New York sometime in November, 2013.

The FBI says Shockley presented himself to the couple as a multimillionaire whose father had died and left him a fortune and his mother was in charge of a highly profitable group of companies.

The affidavit says in reality, Shockley’s father was alive at the time and his mother worked for Walmart.

Investigators say that Shockley sent the wife an email that appeared to be from his rich mother, thanking the couple for taking care of her son when he was at their home in Conklin, New York.

The email offered to pay off all of the woman’s credit card bills as a show of gratitude. All the woman had to do was send Shockley’s “mother” all her personal credit card information.

The FBI says the woman unknowingly sent the couple’s credit information to Shockley, who not only failed to pay off the couple’s debt, but made unauthorized purchases on the cards.

In addition, investigators say Shockley used the couple’s social security numbers and other identification to open two new credit card accounts, which he allegedly used to make even more unauthorized purchases.

About the same time, the FBI says Shockley persuaded the couple, their daughter and her husband to invest in a non-existent assisted living business that he promised would reap substantial returns.

Some of the victims even liquidated their retirement savings to invest in the phony business, according to prosecutors.

Shockley, according to the affidavit, would solicit even more money by saying he needed funds to complete construction of a building for the business.

The FBI says that while the victims never saw a return on their investment, Shockley allegedly used the money for personal expenditures, including expensive shopping sprees, vacations and luxury car payments.

The alleged scheme unraveled in October 2014, when the mother of Shockley’s former boyfriend found Shockley’s old Apple iPhone that he had left behind in her home.

On the phone, the mom found several text messages, e-mails, and photographs indicating that he was masquerading as his fabricated rich mother when he communicated with the New York couple and others.

The mom turned the phone over to Lakewood, Ohio Police Department, which turned the information over to the FBI.

Shockley has been charged with one count of mail fraud and two counts of wire fraud.

He is scheduled to be arraigned in U.S. District Court in Cleveland next week.

The government has filed the charges as a bill of information instead of an indictment, which gives Shockley the option of pleading guilty instead of going through the grand jury process.