March 22, 2010

MAN PLEADS GUILTY TO STEALING IDENTITIES IN FRAUD SCHEME THAT COST BANKS, BUSINESSES $30,000

KANSAS CITY, KAN. – Robert Leroy Maxwell, 45, has pleaded guilty to identity theft and other charges in a fraud scheme that cost banks and businesses in Kansas City, Kan., Olathe and elsewhere a total of more than $30,000.

Maxwell pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft, one count of aggravated identity theft and one count of mail theft. In his plea, he admitted that when he was arrested Jan. 21, 2009, at the Argosy Casino in Kansas City, Mo, he was carrying stolen driver’s licenses, Social Security cards and credit cards. From Dec. 8, 2008, through Jan. 21, 2009, he and co-defendant Marcella Diane Machado conspired to defraud the First National Bank of Olathe, First Legends State Bank, Intrust Bank, Mid-America Bank and First State Bank and Trust of Perry, Kan., by stealing checks and using stolen identities to cash the checks.

In one instance, Maxwell used a driver’s license and checks from a man whose car was stolen at a gas station in Overland Park to try to cash a check at the Hen House in Kansas City, Kan. In another case, he used a stolen driver’s license and stolen checks to attempt to cash a check at a Price Chopper store in Kansas City, Kan. In another case, he possessed a check drawn on an excavating company that was stolen from a mail box in Oskaloosa, Kan.

He is set for sentencing June 21, 2010. Co-defendant Machado is set for sentencing June 1, 2010. They face 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.

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.