Beltsville Fraudster Sentenced to 20 Months in Prison in Second Credit Card Fraud Scheme

Greenbelt, Maryland - U.S. District Judge Roger W. Titus sentenced Rhoan McCalla, age 27, of Beltsville, Maryland, today to 20 months in prison, to be served consecutive to his current prison term, followed by three years of supervised release, for conspiracy to commit credit card fraud. Judge Titus also entered an order that McCalla pay restitution of $69,583.24.

The sentence was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein and Postal Inspector in Charge Daniel S. Cortez of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service - Washington Division.

According to McCalla’s plea agreement, from at least January 2009 to about April 3, 2009, Rhoan McCalla and his co-conspirators created an e-mail account and loaded personal identifying information of numerous potential victims into that account. McCalla or another coconspirator then accessed that account and utilized the information to obtain unauthorized credit cards issued by DiscoverCard, which were used to purchase goods and obtain cash advances at stores located in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. During the course of the conspiracy, McCalla and others used personal identifying information of 10 victims to obtain Discover credit cards. The total loss amount associated with this scheme was $69,583.54.

Less than a year ago, on April 17, 2009, Judge Titus sentenced McCalla to 63 months in prison in connection with a separate but similar scheme in which McCalla and several co-defendants bought the identifying information of victims during July 2006, and from at least December 2006 through at least December 2007, used that information to fraudulently obtain credit cards, using the fraudulently obtained and unauthorized credit cards to purchase gift cards and other items. The victims lost a total of $582,165 in that scheme.

United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein commended Assistant United States Attorney Bryan E. Foreman, who prosecuted the case.