NEWS RELEASE

OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY

WESTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI

JOHN F. WOOD

Contact Don Ledford, Public Affairs ● (816) 426-4220 ● 400 East Ninth Street, Room 5510 ● Kansas City, MO 64106

www.usdoj.gov/usao/mow/index.html

DECEMBER 18, 2007

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

OKLAHOMA MAN SENTENCED FOR BANK FRAUD

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – John F. Wood, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that a Cherokee, Okla., man was sentenced in federal court today for using counterfeit checks to defraud several banks of nearly $58,000.

Richard V. Wilson, 52, of Cherokee, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Howard F. Sachs this morning to 15 months in federal prison without parole. The court also ordered Wilson to pay $57,992 in restitution.

On March 29, 2007, Wilson pleaded guilty to bank fraud. Wilson admitted that, in July 2003, he opened nine bank accounts at three Kansas City, Mo., banks – Commercial Federal Bank in the Northland, Bank Midwest at City Center Square and Commerce Bank at 922 Walnut. The accounts were for fictitious business entities, and Wilson used fraudulent identification to forge the signature cards for the accounts. Wilson deposited dozens of computer-generated counterfeit checks into those accounts, then made cash withdrawals before the counterfeits were detected.

Nearly two years later, a hit on the Automated Fingerprint Identification System was made, matching a partial print on one of the signature cards to the known prints of Wilson.

This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney John E. Cowles. It was investigated by the U.S. Secret Service and the Johnson County, Kan., Sheriff’s Department.

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