Sacramento Man Sentenced To Federal Prison For ID Thefts
SACRAMENTO (CBS13)- A Sacramento man was sentenced Tuesday to three years, five months in federal prison for identity theft after defrauding 50 victims out of between $30,000 and $70,000, United States Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner announced.
According to court documents, between March 2011 and May 2012, Michael Stephen Moynihan, 28, acquired personal information about individuals and used it to get authorization codes from Green Dot MoneyPak cards and other access devices. He transferred money from the victims' Green Dot cards to his own accounts for his personal use.
Moynihan acquired between $30,000 and $70,000 from up to 50 different victims throughout the United States, including Colorado, Mississippi, Texas, Illinois, Florida, Washington, Kansas, California, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Arizona, Maine, and Indiana. He was arrested after a joint investigation by the U.S. Secret Service, Placer County Sheriff's Office and El Paso County (Colorado) Sheriff's Department.
Court documents also state that on May 23, 2011, Moynihan contacted a Placer County sheriff's detective who was investigating the fraud and told the detective to back off or he would make him "look bad." Moynihan threatened that if the detective did not stop his investigation, Moynihan would spoof the detective's phone to make it look like he was attempting to engage in fraud, he would call the detective's supervisor and complain that the detective was threatening him, or he would kill the detective and his family.
He said that he could find the detective in 15 minutes and come to his house and kill him. He concluded by saying that the detective was a "dead man."
In sentencing Moynihan, U.S. District Judge John A. Mendez said that because of the defendant's long criminal history, he did not believe that there was "anything redeemable" about him.
