A Florida man and his alleged accomplices traveled to Portland to break into women’s cars – usually through cruise parks, day care centers, and gyms – to steal their purses, wallets, and ID cards, and then recruited locals to cash nearly $ 100,000 in counterfeit checks at banks in the city, said federal prosecutors.
Damian B. Fletcher, 27, and his alleged cohort found women with drug addictions and homeless people to pose as victims and collect the money, US assistant attorney Seth Uram said.
Fletcher and his conspirators would use the furthest trace of a bank driveway window, making it more difficult for a bank clerk to compare a stolen driver’s license photo to the impersonator and ensure a quicker escape if someone became suspicious, Uram said.
Fletcher was sentenced to just over three years in prison on Monday after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and aggravated identity theft. He was also asked to pay $ 98,733 in restitution.
He is one of six defendants charged in the case and the first to be convicted. Four of the other defendants are from Florida. One is from Washington State.
He and his crew also flew to Washington and Colorado to commit a similar program, Uram said.
Prosecutors described Fletcher as part of a so-called “Felony Lane Gang,” a Florida-based interstate criminal organization that travels to locations across the country to commit vehicle break-ins and fraud. Law enforcement and bank officials have called the outer lane of a bank drive-up a “crime lane” because it is the lane used for such crimes, Uram wrote in his verdict.
Fletcher and his group broke into at least 32 cars in the Portland metropolitan area and stole $ 98,733 after cashing 22 checks at five different banks, according to court records. The banks were able to stop paying some checks but ultimately lost $ 57,650, prosecutors said.
They attempted to cash additional checks for $ 122,000 but were declined, Uram said.
“Fletcher and his co-conspirators were in some cases brave enough and loveless enough to hunt down women who had left their cars for only a few minutes to take their children to daycare,” Uram wrote to the judge.
According to court records, other women have lost items of considerable sentimental value. One had stolen a wedding ring. Another had grabbed a wallet that was one of the last gifts she’d received from her elderly father.
Fletcher flew from Fort Lauderdale to Portland at least three times between September 2019 and November 2019, staying in Portland for two to five weeks each, Uram said.
Fletcher’s defense attorney Jamie Kilberg described his client’s crimes as “as straightforward as a bank fraud case can be”. For example, he didn’t make any fake IDs or fake checks, Kilberg said. He also has no previous convictions, said his lawyer.
Fletcher is the father of a 3-year-old son who lived in the Fort Lauderdale area his entire life, Kilberg said. Kilberg requested a lesser prison sentence of two years and six months.
But while the prosecutor agreed that Fletcher’s crime wasn’t complicated or terribly technical, he described it as extremely “personal” and said that Fletcher and the other defendants struck cars as their owners and occupants had gone or were about to return .
“The physical invasion of privacy, the emotional response to having a person’s safety zone breached in this way, and of course the financial difficulties,” were devastating and disruptive to the victims, Uram said.
Fletcher videotaped his conviction from the Miami area and apologized to his victims.
US District Judge Michael W. Mosman sentenced him to one year and one day for bank conspiracy conspiracies, allowing Fletcher to earn good service credit, and two years in prison for the harsher conviction for identity theft.
He also ordered Fletcher to undergo substance abuse tests if he finishes his sentence while on post-prison surveillance.
Co-defendants Delvin Mills, 29, from Lauderdale Lakes, Florida, Megan Spurlock, 27, from Washington, and Linda Marie Lupo, 52, from Deerfield, Florida, have all pleaded guilty and are awaiting conviction. Justin Curry, 28, from Fort Lauderdale and 23-year-old Treveon Donte Jordan, from Lauderdale Lakes, will be released pending a four-day trial in court scheduled for June 15.
– Maxine Bernstein
Email mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212
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