A 53-year-old Augusta man was sentenced to more than eight years in federal prison after admitting his role in a scheme to steal hospitality services by claiming to be part of a famed rap group.
Walker Washington was sentenced to 100 months in prison by U.S. District Court Judge Dudley H. Bowen after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, David H. Estes, acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Georgia, said in a news release.
Washington also was ordered to pay about $300,000 to 19 businesses defrauded in the scheme, according to the release. He must serve three years of supervised release after his prison term is completed. There is no parole in the federal system.
Co-defendant Aaron Barnes-Burpo, 29, of Crestview, Florida, previously was sentenced to 84 months in prison after pleading guilty. He also must pay restitution to the businesses.
“These two flim-flam artists and their phony entourage lived large for several weeks by scamming hospitality providers,” Estes said in the news release. “We commend the skeptical hotel clerk who saw through the scam and alerted law enforcement, bringing this scheme to a halt.”
In court documents and testimony, Barnes-Burpo and Washington admitted they falsely portrayed themselves as being affiliated with the Roc Nation production company and the hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan as early as September 2019.
They used those fictitious representations along with fraudulent and stolen credit cards to rent luxury limousines and defraud hotels, caterers and production studios of thousands of dollars in goods and services in multiple cities, primarily in the Southeast, according to the news release.
The scam unraveled Nov. 21, 2019, when staff at the Fairfield Inn and Suites in Augusta became suspicious and alerted the FBI and the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office.
“These two scammers will have plenty of time to figure out if their few weeks of unearned fame was worth several years in prison,” said Chris Hacker, special agent in charge of FBI Atlanta.
The crew of Rolls Royce-riding identity thieves who posed as rap industry figures scammed hundreds of thousands of dollars from some of the South’s most exclusive hotels, prosecutors say.
The group told hotel workers they were with the entertainment firm Roc Nation and listed the rap group Wu-Tang Clan with at least one of the hotels, according to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Atlanta.
“These two scammers will have plenty of time to figure out if their few weeks of unearned fame was worth several years in prison."
The Georgian Terrace Hotel in Atlanta — where cast members from “Gone With The Wind” stayed during the film’s Atlanta premiere — was left with a $45,000 unpaid bill. Representatives of the Hyatt Regency Atlanta told the FBI the group walked away without paying its $39,000 tab.
They had been driving a Roll Royce Phantom rented from A-National Limousine, which reported a loss of nearly $60,000.
The group also used two Atlanta recording studios, which lost a total of more than $17,000, the complaint states.
The case was investigated by the FBI and other state and local authorities. It was prosecuted for the United States by Assistant U.S. Attorney Patricia G. Rhodes.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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