United States Attorney Richard B. Roper
Northern District of Texas

RINGLEADER IN COUNTERFEIT CHECK AND IDENTITY THEFT OPERATION
SENTENCED TO NEARLY NINE YEARS IN FEDERAL PRISON

DALLAS — The ringleader in a counterfeit check and identity theft operation, Antonio Desmond Stone, 32, of Dallas, was sentenced today by U.S. Chief District Judge Sidney A. Fitzwater, to a total of 105 months in federal prison, announced U.S. Attorney Richard B. Roper of the Northern District of Texas. He was also ordered to pay $26,482 in restitution. Stone, was convicted at trial in June of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, multiple counts of bank fraud and aggravated identity theft. Judge Fitzwater sentenced him to 57 months on the bank fraud counts, with an additional 24 months for each of two aggravated identity theft counts to run consecutively, for a total of 105 months in prison.

In a completely separate case, in 2002, Stone pled guilty to possession of counterfeit checks and received 50 months in federal prison. He served that time and was on supervised release. He will now appear before U.S. District Judge John McBryde in Fort Worth to receive additional punishment for violating his terms of supervised release in that case. Stone has been in custody since his conviction in June 2008.

As the ringleader of the counterfeit check and identity theft operation, Stone recruited bank insiders to obtain confidential bank customer information and used this information to produce counterfeit checks, produce phony ID’s to pass the checks, and recruited others to pass the counterfeit checks.

Three of Stone’s co-defendants, Williana Sharee Johnson, Natasha Toinette McGruder and Meoshia Christine Guidry, pled guilty to bank fraud, and have been sentenced. Johnson was an employee of First Convenience Bank and provided customer account information through others to Stone.

U.S. Attorney Roper praised the investigative efforts of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys David Jarvis and Stephen Fahey.

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