Two Atlantans are going to federal prison for stealing the identities of Emory University and University of Georgia medical and law students to apply for post-graduate school loans.
Maario Coleman, 28, was sentenced to four years and Angela Russell, 43, was sentenced to two years. They have to pay $52,000 and $26,000 in restitution respectively, federal authorities announced Friday.
“This elaborate and aggressive scheme to defraud targeted not only those students at Emory University and the University of Georgia, but also Discover Bank,” said J. Britt Johnson, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Atlanta office, “and serves as an example of the harm that can be caused by several well placed individuals using their access and others’ personal information.”
United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said Coleman obtained the names of over 100 members of the 2013 class of graduating law and medical students at Emory University and five law students at the University of Georgia and their partial social security numbers and dates of birth.
He then asked Russell, who had access to credit-reporting databases, to supply the rest of the social security numbers and other identifying information, which allowed them to apply for $400,000 in post-graduate bar exam study loans and medical residency loans from Discover Bank, Yates said.
Coleman used the the identifying information also to obtain passwords to Emory’s online portal to order academic transcripts when those were required by Discover.
When the funds came in, Coleman had them deposited in bank accounts he had opened in the student’s names and then he used other associates to withdraw the money — about $52,000 before the scheme was discovered —from ATMs, Yates said.
Both defendants had pleaded guilty to aggravated identity theft on May 13. Coleman also pleaded guilty to computer fraud.
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