HARTFORD Conn. -- A Florida man was sentenced to 22 years in prison yesterday after federal prosecutors said he spent three years as the ringleader of a gang of "felony lane" thieves — embezzlers who used the lane farthest from a credit union teller's drive-through window to cash fraudulent checks.
Authorities estimated that the gang of thieves organized by Michael Johnson, 32, of Miami Gardens, stole as much as $6 million — $15,000 a day — during a phony check cashing spree that ran from 2007 to 2010 and took them up and down the East Coast. The victims were members of Community Educators CU, Space Coast CU, Astoria FCU, Power 1 CU, Central Florida Educators CU, Navy FCU, Coastal FCU, AA CU, Duke University CU, Local Government Employees FCU, U.S. Postal Service FCU, Pentagon FCU, Weyco CU, City County CU and Tropical CU, and customers of more than a dozen banks.
Johnson’s sentence followed a 20-year term handed out two weeks ago to Jermaine Jones, who authorities said was co-ringleader.
As part of the scheme, the ring stole identification documents, checks, debit cards, and credit cards, usually by burglarizing the victims’ cars. The defendants targeted cars in parking lots at gymnasiums, parks, athletic fields, and other places where they believed women would leave purses unattended. The ring recruited women, typically with substance abuse problems, to cash forged checks at the credit unions and banks.
A third conspirator, Sheikera Williams, of Aventura, Fla., filled out and provided the stolen checks, along with stolen identification and bank cards, to the “cashers.” Williams also provided cashers with wigs, hats and sunglasses to disguise their appearances and to prevent tellers in the drive-thru from recognizing that the casher was not the legitimate account holder.
In some cases, Johnson is accused of having the check cashers wear wigs, hats and sunglasses to make them more closely resemble photographs on stolen identification cards, such as drivers licenses. The gang calculated that it decreased the odds of detection by using the drive-through lanes most distant from tellers — lanes known among check thieves as the felony lane.
Investigators have identified at least 158 individuals who were victimized in the scheme.
