Four men were sentenced to multiple years each in a scam that was run partly from a prison by pressuring women employed in the medical field to pay a bond and avoid arrest, federal prosecutors said on Thursday.
The prosecutors said that Russell Tafron Weatherspoon, 26, recruited the others to pose as law enforcement officers and target people across six states, including Iowa, from around March 2022 to April 2024, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of Iowa.
To coordinate their fraudulent operation, Mr. Weatherspoon made phone calls from Calhoun State Prison, a medium-security facility in Morgan, Ga., where at least one drone had been used to drop cellphones into the yard for him and others to use, the prosecutors said.
Mr. Weatherspoon was in the prison after violating his probation for aggravated assault in 2018 for a robbery attempt. He was also convicted of other charges related to a 2020 episode where he fired a shot into an occupied home, the court records show.
The other men charged in the case were Karl Andre Dieudonne, 23; Demonte Tequis Brazil, 32; and Gregory Lamar Scorza, 25.
Lawyers listed for the four men in court documents had not responded to requests for comment on Saturday.
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The post 4 Men Are Sentenced in Warrant Scam That Was Run From Prison appeared first on New York Times.
