AUGUSTA, Ga. — A Georgia man was sentenced Monday to greater than two years in federal jail after pleading responsible to a scheme that used stolen identities to acquire tickets to the Masters golf event.
Federal prosecutors say Stephen Michael Freeman, 42, of Athens, and three members of the family in Texas bought these tickets for a revenue.
U.S. District Court docket Choose Randall Corridor within the event’s hometown of Augusta sentenced Freeman to 28 months in jail. Greater than a yr had handed since Freeman pleaded responsible to conspiracy to commit mail fraud. His dad and mom and a sister additionally entered responsible pleas final yr and had been sentenced to a few years on probation.
As a part of their plea offers, the members of the family agreed to pay a complete of almost $275,500 in restitution. A information launch from U.S. Legal professional Bobby Christine’s workplace didn’t say what number of tickets the household obtained or how a lot they profited from them.
Federal prosecutors stated the household used stolen IDs from 2013 by 2017 to cheat the lottery system that distributes event tickets and to bypass Augusta Nationwide Golf Membership’s guidelines permitting individuals to use solely as soon as to enter its ticket lottery.
The household bought bulk mailing lists to acquire names and addresses of folks that had been used to create faux accounts for Augusta Nationwide’s on-line ticket lottery, based on the court docket paperwork filed in April by federal prosecutors. These accounts had been submitted with electronic mail addresses managed by Freeman and his kin.
The household would then ask Augusta Nationwide to vary the addresses related to the bogus accounts, utilizing “false driver licenses, false utility payments and false bank card statements within the id of the faux consumer accounts” despatched by mail, the court docket paperwork stated. That will guarantee any tickets received by the lottery can be mailed to addresses the place Freeman and his kin would obtain them, prosecutors stated.
