Former Indiana Guards Sentenced for Stealing Prisoners’ Identities to Launder Cash From Online Romance Scam
Former Indiana Department of Corrections (DOC) guards Lawrence Onyesonwu, 38, and Martins Tochukwu Chidiobi, 34, were sentenced on September 19 and 20, 2024, respectively, to three years in federal prison for stealing state prisoners’ identities to set up bank accounts, where they laundered funds from an online romance scam.
The pair worked at New Castle Correctional Facility (NCCF) from 2015 until their January 2019 arrest, using their access to prisoner personal information to steal the identities of five incarcerated men. The prisoners were not named. The guards used the stolen identities and their own photos to obtain fraudulent passports from Nigeria, Liberia and Ghana, presenting those when opening bank accounts in the stolen names. In turn those were used to collect $331,282 in deposits from at least 11 victims of an online romance scam.
The scheme unraveled when a Citizens State Bank official reported to New Castle Police in early 2019 that “there are large transactions taking place through PayPal” and suspected “that possible identity theft is taking place.” Cops caught up with Onyesonwu at a bank branch, but the guard insisted he was the person named on his bank account; however, that was actually a DOC prisoner serving time at NCCF for 2013 rape and sexual battery convictions.
Both former guards pleaded guilty in February 2023 to aggravated identity theft and making false statements to a financial institution. In addition to their prison terms, they were ordered to serve two years of supervised release and pay a $5,000 fine, plus another $200 special assessment. The federal court for the Southern District of Indiana also recommended that the Bureau of Prisons place Onyesonwu at the Federal Correctional Center in Terre Haute and Chidiobi at the Federal Correctional Institution in Elkton, Ohio. See: United States v. Onyesonwu, USDC (S.D. Ind.), Case No. 1:19-cr-00224.
In a typical romance scam, perpetrators use a phony account on a dating website to earn the trust of a credulous victim, convincing her or him to send cash for a made-up emergency need. Often based overseas, such scams cost U.S. victims $547 million in 2021 alone, the Federal Trade Commission estimated. The federal Department of Justice said that a “large portion” of what the guards scammed was transferred to Nigerian bank accounts and lost.
Additional source: WTHR