March 9, 2010

OLATHE WOMAN PLEADS GUILTY TO STEALING IDENTITIES

KANSAS CITY, KAN. – Marcella Diane Machado, 46, Olathe, Kan., has pleaded guilty to identity theft charges, U.S. Attorney Lanny Welch said today.

Machado pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft, one count of aggravated identity theft and one count of possessing a check stolen from a mailbox. In her plea, she admitted that from Dec. 8, 2008, to Jan. 21, 2009, she and co-defendant Robert Leroy Maxwell conspired to defraud the First National Bank of Olathe, First Legends Bank, Intrust Bank, Mid-America Bank and First State Bank & Trust of Perry, Kan., by stealing checks and using stolen identities to cash the checks.

In one instance, Machado used a driver’s license stolen from a woman in Spring Hill, Kan., and a checkbook stolen from a man in Lenexa, Kan., to attempt to cash a $670 check at a grocery store in Lawrence, Kan. In another instance, she used another woman’s stolen driver’s license to attempt to defraud Intrust Bank in Shawnee, Kan. Machado also admitted aiding and abetting Maxwell in the possession of a check drawn on an excavating company that had been stolen from a mailbox in Oskaloosa, Kan.

Machado is scheduled for sentencing on June 1, 2010. She faces a maximum penalty of five years in federal prison and a fine up to $250,000 on the conspiracy charge; a mandatory two years consecutive to other sentences on the identity theft charge; and a maximum penalty of five years and a fine up to $250,000 on the stolen mail charge.

Co-defendant Robert Leroy Maxwell is awaiting trial. Welch commended the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the Johnson, Jefferson Douglas and Leavenworth County Sheriffs’ Offices, the Lenexa, Spring Hill, Shawnee and Kansas City, Kan., Police Departments and the Missouri State Highway Patrol for their work on the case.