Jamaican National Sentenced for Conspiracy to Commit Mail Fraud

Acting U.S. Attorney Duane A. Evans announced that ANDREW O’NEIL BOWYER, age 26, a resident of Jamaica, was sentenced today after previously pleading guilty to a one-count Indictment for Conspiracy to Commit Mail Fraud.

U.S. District Judge Carl J. Barbier sentenced BOWYER to 78 months incarceration, followed by 3 years of supervised release, and a $100 special assessment. A hearing on restitution is set for October 5, 2017.

According to court records, on or before August 2013, BOWYER and others operated a scheme to contact elderly individuals and people with diminished capacity who would be susceptible to being scammed. The scheme involved contacting victims by telephone through Voice Over Internet Protocol (“VoIP”) and informing them they had won the Publisher’s Clearing House Sweepstakes or similar lottery and needed to pay BOWYER and others monies by cash, check, wire, and other methods in order to claim their lottery winnings.

BOWYER and others obtained names, addresses, and other biographical information from an unknown source. They used the information to identify victims, telephone them, or direct others to telephone them, to represent that they had won the sweepstakes and inform them they would need to send him or others money in order to claim their winnings.

It was part of the scheme and artifice to defraud that on or around March 30, 2015, BOWYER employed false representations and promises in order to convince V.L., an elderly person, into believing she had won a sweepstakes, causing V.L. to send money via the United States Postal Service to CC-1, a co-conspirator living in New Orleans. V.L. sent the money to CC-1 in reliance on BOWYER’s false representations and promises that if she sent the money to CC-1, she would be awarded sweepstakes winnings. Immediately after receiving the funds in the mail from V.L., CC-1 deposited the money into his bank account in New Orleans, and initiated a wire transfer of the funds from the account to BOWYER’s account in Jamaica.

Acting U.S. Attorney Evans praised the work of the United States Postal Service, Office of Inspector General, United States Secret Service, and the United States Department of Homeland Security in investigating this matter. Assistant U.S. Attorney Sharan E. Lieberman was in charge of the prosecution.