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Hartford resident Edward Williams, 58, was sentenced on Wednesday to 54 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for fraud and identity theft charges stemming from a mail theft and check cashing scam.
Williams - whose criminal history includes 74 arrests and numerous convictions, including some for forgery, larceny and burglary offenses - used various means to alter and fill out checks for several years, U.S. Attorney John Durham said. Those checks were then made payable to himself, co-conspirators or stolen identities that he had previously used to cash them.
One check, which was made payable to American Express, was altered and cashed for nearly $1,000. The person whose identity Williams stole and used to cash that check and commit other crimes wound up being wrongly arrested by local police, Durham noted. Wiliams also stole holiday cards filled with bonus checks, a box of checks from a West Hartford resident and personal checks were stolen from a local business.
In total, between August 2016 and June 2017, Williams and his co-conspirators successfully cashed $27,311.35 in fraudulently obtained checks. He further attempted to cash $40,861.65 in fraudulently obtained checks.
Williams has been in police custody since his arrest on Oct. 18, 2017. On Nov. 5 last year, Williams pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud and one count of identity theft.
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