Maryland Man Gets 5 Years for Identity Theft
Michael James Brooker, 52, of Fort Washington, Maryland was sentenced to five years of hard time for his conviction on identity theft charges.
In addition to prison time, Brooker received three additional years of supervised release. On top of all of this, he is being ordered to pay $78,597 in restitution. All of this comes from guilty pleas entered by himself and his co-conspirators.
According to said pleas, from May 2003 to February 2004 the defendant and his co-conspirator made money through identity theft by faking and filing deeds that transferred real estate title from the name of rightful owners to stolen identities. An interesting strategy, but how do you make money?
There were two approaches used by the defendants. The first was to sell the property to unsuspecting buyers. The second was to gain financing on the property from lenders in the name of the stolen identities.
In carrying out their scheme, the defendants were able to sell one home to an unsuspecting buyer for $128,000 and pocket the money. Brooker and his co-conspirators were never able to get the lender financing they were seeking.