NEW HAVEN – A former Shelton resident who ran an IT company pleaded guilty Tuesday to hijacking a client’s tech to swindle thousands of dollars. 

Billie Conley, Jr., 46, pleaded guilty June 2 in New Haven federal court to wire fraud. He faces up to 20 years in prison. A sentencing date has yet to be scheduled.

According to an affidavit from the FBI, Conley operated Ridgefield Tech, LLC, a one-person IT company based in Shelton.

In September 2023, Conley’s business started contracting with a funeral service business. The FBI did not name the business, but said the two met through a mutual acquaintance.

Ridgefield Tech was hired to set up the funeral services’ computers along with its computer network, copiers, and video surveillance system. Conley charged about $13,500 for the work.

Shortly after Conley’s work was finished, the funeral service started experiencing tech issues. They’d resolve the issues by calling Conley back and pay by the visit.

Conley, according to the FBI, offered a monthly contract to cover the company’s tech needs instead of paying by the visit.

The funeral service owner wasn’t interested – and continued to have an array of computer networking issues through September 2024.

The issues were serious enough to stop the company from doing business on several occasions, according to the FBI document.

The funeral services company hired a second IT company to check out their issues.

That company said Ridgefield Tech had given itself unauthorized remote access to the funeral services’ network. The access, according to the FBI, gave Conley the ability to knock the network offline.

“Between January and September 2024, Conley remotely disabled Company-A’s computer network on 21 separate days, which resulted in Company-A being unable to conduct business on those days,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a prepared statement June 2.

Conley told the FBI he didn’t have permission to install remote access, but denied accessing the network, according to federal court filings.

Meanwhile, the new IT firm hired to fix the problems caused by Conley could not save the system – so the funeral service paid about $46,000 so the new IT firm could start from scratch.

As all this was happening, the owner of the funeral service noticed strange transactions on the business’ bank account, including payments to Verizon Wireless and Kaseya, a tech company.

The FBI determined the payments were made illegally by Conley, who accessed the bank account to take money he used to pay off debts his business owed to Kaseya. He also used the money to pay off his cell phone bill.

The FBI listed about $9,000 in unauthorized payments between June and July 2024.

The FBI affidavit gave law enforcement probable cause to charge Conley with wire fraud. He was arrested in December 2025. He signed a plea agreement with prosecutors June 1 admitting his scheme to rip off the funeral services company. He’ll also have to pay restitution at a dollar amount to be determined later.

Conley’s criminal record includes felony charges for forgery and for passing a bad check for more than $2,000 in Shelton. He’s currently serving three years in state prison for a first-degree larceny conviction out of East Hampton. Details on that case were not available.

Conley was previously arrested in 2015 on identity theft and forgery charges in Fairfield, according to The Connecticut Post. His company had made repairs to a woman’s computer, whose son later noticed some $75,000 in unauthorized financial transactions. The paper noted Conley had previously been involved in similar scams in Darien, Greenwich, and Stamford.