North Carolina Man Sentenced for Role in Bank Fraud, ID Theft Conspiracy

Lynchburg, VIRGINIA – A North Carolina man, who conspired with others to make money by cashing checks that had been stolen and altered, was sentenced today in the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia in Lynchburg, Acting United States Attorney Rick A. Mountcastle announced.

Donald Hicklin, 39, of Charlotte, N.C., previously pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and two counts of aggravated identify theft. Today in District Court, Hicklin was sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 98 months. In January 2016, Charlotte resident Mario Clinton was sentenced to 85 months in federal prison for his involvement in the same conspiracy.

According to evidence presented at previous hearings by Assistant United States Attorney Laura Day Rottenborn and Special Assistant United States Attorney Kari Munro, Hicklin and Clinton stole checks from corporate mailboxes located in and around business districts and then altered them to reflect a new payee name and dollar amount. They recruited individuals off the street, who were frequently women, to cash the fraudulent checks at issuing banks. They operated primarily in Virginia and North Carolina but made criminal sweeps on a regular basis through locations as far away as Pennsylvania, Missouri and Tennessee.

Investigation of the case was conducted by the United States Postal Inspection Service, the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, the Bedford County Sheriff’s Office and the Mount Holly, North Carolina Police Department. Assistant United States Attorney Laura Day Rottenborn and Special Assistant United States Attorney Kari Munro prosecuted the case for the United States.