Dashawn Duncan, 27, of South Orange, was sentenced today to 24 months in prison for his role in conspiring to defraud two banks of $250,000 using stolen credit cards and blank checks, Acting U.S. Attorney Rachael A. Honig announced.
According to Acting U.S. Attorney Honig, Duncan, and coconspirators Nasheed Jackson, 24, of Newark, and Alexander Varice, 22, of South Orange, previously pleaded guilty to informations charging each of them with one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud. Jackson was sentenced to 2 years on July 22, and Varice is scheduled to be sentenced on September 7.
According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:
From August 2018 through January 2020, Varice, Jackson, and Duncan engaged in a scheme to use stolen credit cards or checks to fraudulently make purchases and withdraw money from two banks.
The credit cards were stolen from facilities used by the U.S. Postal Service in Pine Brook and Warren and never reached the intended cardholders.
After obtaining the stolen cards, Varice, Jackson, and Duncan used them to make unauthorized purchases at various retail stores and to withdraw cash from automated teller machines (ATMs) in New Jersey and elsewhere.
The blank checks were also stolen from various New Jersey-based post office facilities and never reached their intended recipients.
Varice and Jackson altered the date, payee, and amount of the stolen checks prior to deposit into a third-party account so that they could manually enter the amounts that they wanted to fraudulently withdraw from a victim bank ATM.
In addition to the prison term, Duncan was sentenced to five years of supervised release.