SACRAMENTO — Two Woodland residents pleaded guilty Thursday to a scheme to steal identities from mail obtained by fraudulent vacation holds and mail-forwarding requests filed online, U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced.
Latomba Bishop, 32, pleaded guilty to mail fraud and aggravated identity theft, and Joshua Yadon, 34, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obtain mail by fraud.
“Postal inspectors worked closely with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and our partners in law enforcement to arrest and prosecute those individuals responsible for thefts of mail and identity theft crimes committed against the public,” Rafael Nunez, inspector in charge of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service’s San Francisco Division, said in a news release.
According to court documents, Bishop, Yadon and Norman Thompson, 36, of Sacramento, conspired to obtain credit cards, checks and merchandise in victims’ names and then diverted these items from the victims’ true addresses to the conspirators’ addresses using fraudulent vacation holds and mail-forwarding requests filed online with the U.S. Postal Service.
The defendants were captured on video using fraudulently obtained credit cards at various retailers in the Sacramento area.
For her part, Bishop made a $1,000 online purchase of shoes using a victim’s compromised online merchant account. When the victim reported the fraud and the shipment was canceled, Bishop called the company, posing as the victim and demanded that she be reimbursed for the purchase. Bishop directed the company to mail checks to Bishop’s own address.
According to the plea agreements, on April 19, 2017, Yadon and Bishop bought more than $1,000 in merchandise at a home improvement store using a credit card obtained through the scheme.
This case is the product of an investigation by the United States Postal Inspection Service with assistance from the Davis Police Department, Sacramento County Probation and the Woodland Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeremy J. Kelley is prosecuting the case.
On Oct. 5, 2017, co-defendant Thompson was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Troy L. Nunley to three years and 10 months in prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to obtain mail by fraud. He was ordered to pay $38,086 in restitution to victims of the scheme.
Yadon and Bishop are scheduled to be sentenced by Nunley on Feb. 15. Yadon faces a maximum statutory penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Bishop faces a maximum statutory penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.