Three plead guilty to attempting to defraud banks
By Staff Reports
Published in News on July 11, 2010 1:50 AM
WILMINGTON -- United States attorney George E. B. Holding announced that on July 6, in federal court, three Wayne County defendants pled guilty to charges relating to a scheme to defraud financial institutions. Dawnice Iquan Wilkins, 38, of Goldsboro, Barbara Ann Oates, 37, of Dudley, and Sirrhysa Adel Daniels of Goldsboro, each pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to commit mail and wire fraud before Senior United States District Judge James C. Fox.
On April 26, a federal grand jury had returned a criminal information on April.
According to statements presented at the hearing, from January 2007 through October 2008, Ms. Wilkins fraudulently opened bank accounts at Suntrust, Washington Mutual, Bank of America, BB&T, Wachovia, E-Trade and Capital One, using fictitious names and Social Security numbers, along with numerous different addresses. Ms. Wilkins would inflate the balance of some fraudulently created accounts by depositing money from other fraudulently created accounts. In reality, the accounts Ms. Wilkins used to deposit money had no balance, so the deposits would eventually bounce, but in the meantime, Ms. Wilkins would withdraw money from the false balance. By using hundreds of different bank accounts, Ms. Wilkins was able to defraud the banks of nearly $61,500.
Ms. Wilkins enlisted co-defendants Ms. Oates and Ms. Daniels to assist her in this scheme. Their roles in the scheme included providing account mail that they received to Ms. Wilkins, writing fraudulent checks from the accounts, obtaining funds using ATM cards and obtaining a portion of the proceeds from Wilkins.
Each defendant faces up to five years' imprisonment followed by up to three years' supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000.
Investigation of this case was conducted by the United States Postal Inspection Service and the Wayne County Sheriff's Office. Assistant United States attorney David Bragdon represented the government.