Some criminals dwell a lifetime of crime — this one led a number of lives, 26 of them not less than, in response to federal prosecutors.
Jessica Bailey Sowell, 32, of Charlotte, was a part of an identification theft ring that used stolen bank cards and pretend driver’s licenses to wrack up practically a half-million {dollars} in debt, in response to Russ Ferguson, US Lawyer for the Western District of North Carolina.
Whereas executing a search warrant in a lodge room the place Sowell was staying, federal brokers recovered a lavishly adorned weapon: “a Taurus G3 9mm handgun, bedazzled with sequins on the barrel,” prosecutors added.
Sowell ran up different folks’s tabs shopping for something from on a regular basis objects at Goal and Walmart to high-end clothes and luxurious vehicles throughout a year-long crime spree throughout the south, in response to officers and reviews.
“Sowell created fraudulent identification paperwork with the stolen private figuring out data, which she used at banks, inns, and retail shops to acquire cash and merchandise, and to lease lodge rooms and vehicles,” federal prosecutors mentioned.
“Over the course of the investigation, legislation enforcement discovered letters, financial institution playing cards, and checks in Sowell’s possession that belonged to not less than 26 victims of identification theft,” Ferguson mentioned in an announcement.
On Monday, she discovered her destiny.
“Sowell was sentenced to 57 months in jail adopted by 5 years of supervised launch for financial institution fraud, aggravated identification theft, and illegal possession of a firearm,” in response to prosecutors.
She was additionally ordered to pay restitution within the quantity of $47,190.25.
Investigators seized a suitcase containing a whole lot of items of mail with numerous names and addresses, and a second suitcase was filled with store-tagged merchandise.
Authorities additionally discovered two handwritten journals with the names and credit score data of a number of victims; and 23 driver’s licenses from completely different states with Sowell’s {photograph}, in response to prosecutors.
Throughout a search of a rental automobile Sowell was utilizing, investigators discovered a bank card within the identify of an ID theft sufferer, receipts for merchandise bought with the sufferer’s bank card, an identification card printer and a number of clean identification playing cards in addition to holographic stickers, prosecutors mentioned.
At one level through the investigation, Sowell’s confederate made a daring escape, leaping from a second-story lodge window as police have been closing in on him, in response to The Charlotte Observer.
Sowell’s crime spree began in October 2018, prosecutors mentioned, when she and her three accomplices used folks’s mail and actual property listings to steal their identities.
“The defendants used the stolen identities of actual individuals… to create identification playing cards within the victims’ names, however with the defendants’ images,” the indictment states. “Prosecutors mentioned they opened bank cards at locations comparable to Lowe’s, Walmart, Belk, Kohl’s and Goal, and bought autos from a number of CarMax dealerships within the Carolinas, Tennessee and Georgia.”
