A Douglasville, Ga., man must serve 27 months in prison and one year of supervised release after pleading guilty for his role in a Jamaican-based fraudulent lottery scheme targeting senior-adult victims in the United States.
Dominic Hugh Smith, 27, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Robert J. Conrad Jr. of the Western District of North Carolina. Smith was ordered to pay $724,408.79 in restitution, the U.S. Justice Department said in a prepared statement.
In June 2014, Smith pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with the conduct of telemarketing. Prior to pleading guilty, Smith had been employed both as a Transportation Security Administration agent and an Atlanta Police Department police officer, the Justice Department said.
As part of his guilty plea, Smith acknowledged that had the case gone to trial, the government would have proved beyond a reasonable doubt that from December 2010 through at least April 2012, he was a member of a conspiracy in which elderly victims were informed by telephone that they had won a large amount of money and prizes in a lottery and were induced to pay bogus fees in advance of receiving their purported lottery winnings, the Justice Department added.
Victims sent hundreds of thousands of dollars to Smith in the United States, the agency said.
The prosecution is part of the U.S. Department of Justice’s effort, working with federal, state and local law enforcement, to combat lottery fraud schemes from Jamaica preying on American citizens, the Justice Department said.
Americans have lost tens of millions of dollars to fraudulent foreign lotteries, according to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.
What happens to these crooks that are told to pay restitution and don't? There's probably very little of that money left.
theyre a little smarter with their money than their victims.
You did the Crime: Now you got to do the Time!
"ordered to pay $724,408.79 in restitution"
I'm not in favor of debtors' prisons, but I'd have no problems with sentencing him to the shorter of life without parole or making complete restitution.
27 months and restitution ?
that's all ?
thrown em in prison now.
Clock on 27 months should start after restitution is paid in full !
Perhaps criminals can start paying off the restitution to victims by working it off while in prison instead of using their time acquiring law degrees to enabling the offenders find ways of shortening or overturning their sentences ???
Eddessa_Night
LO L I personally believe he should do no Jail time. Any greedy idiot that is willing to fall for such a scam deserves to be parted from his/her money. If you did not enter a lottery then you know you haven't won, especially if you have to send money which is a huge red flag. The so-called victims should go to jail for being a part of a scheme.
Statistically, nothing.
Statistically speaking......Congrat'$ to Officer Smith 4 raking in hundreds of thousands off lottery and moon-lighting a government job at same time!
That must take skill that psyko can never ever expect to acquire, cause after years and many hours plus many dollar'$ $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
still can't bust out of the lottery any money close to what his United States based Operation cashed and happly SPENT$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
so, because you are a victim, you should go to jail? Really? Why? Senior citizens have worked hard all their lives. They have aged and as a part of that. Process, their brains dont work that well. Brain fog on simple terms. These people prey on them because of this. That is why most scams are against the elderly. Hope you dont have to experience this but then ahain sometimes it takes experiencing it to understand.
Twenty seven months. Hmm... With time off for good behavior, it will probably be 18 months at the very most.
And unless he goes back to scamming when he gets out, restitution will probably never happen.
This guy will do it again. That's why they should tattoo "American" on his forehead and dump him in Syria.
1-The sentence is not long enough--should be at least 5 years in prison.
2-A certain amount of greed on the victim's part allowed this to happen. All elderly people are not senile. American Greed is one of my favorite tv shows. I am always surprised at someone who worked 30-40 years and managed to save say $400,000 then just give it to some con man.
OMG I laughed so hard on that one. Just like the prisoners that tatooed the name of the little girl some trash raped...right on his forehead.
Never heard of that show.
I assume he received a federal sentence, so he will not get any good time off or parole. So he was an outstanding police officer too? He'll get his own special area(s) because prisoners do not like police inmates. I bet he'll get sent to the same place Martha Stewart did...a federal clubhouse prison.
Well. Just send the victims to jail.
That's a new one. That should really cut down on crime.
If there's no "victims" left, the criminals won't be able to commit any crimes.
Being a Senior Citizen doesn't excuse one from being a fool or able to think clearly... UNLESS, you have dementia or some other cognitive problems going on otherwise there's absolutely no excuse. I should know, I'm an RN and I'm around seniors daily and a lot of seniors I'm around are very witty and very alert just like the rest of us.
The only excusable people who would truly be victims are elderly people with dementia or the mentally impaired. But if they are at that stage then they shouldn't be handling their own finances.
A little jail time for the so-called lotto victims wouldn't hurt. I believe those that were scammed are just as guilty as the scammers and should be locked up in the same cell.
How on earth do you expect to receive millions if you've never played the lottery? And who has heard of the lottery asking you to send money to them in order to win your prize? I would have told them to take it out of my lottery share...LO L A lot of these people, not just seniors, sent multiple transactions to the scammers.
I would think after the first transaction you would stop after you haven't received anything, but the scammers sweet talk you and paint a pretty picture and have you suckered till you have nothing left to send them.
Then the SCAMMERS number is all of a sudden disconnected and you come back to reality and call yourself a victim and want justice. LOL
Thank God I'll never have you as my nurse if I'm in the hospital.
Such compassion.
Not.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot I was a victim once....almost. I was a unemployed teen looking for work in early 2000s when I saw a job on MONSTER....it was work from home and all I had to do was cash checks from customers and send it back to this art gallery company and keep 10% for myself. I would have supposedly made $4000 per month working part time cashing checks. I deposited the checks and it cleared...I let the scammer know it cleared, he kept pressuring me to send him the $ via western union and he would send a batch of more checks out for me from his clients all over the world. I waited 8 days when I got a call from the bank telling me the check had bounced. I would have been pissed had I sent/spent the money..lol but instead I deposited the $ back into the account. closed it. and opened another one and became very due diligent and stayed away from things that sound too good to be true.
When I learned it was a scam I played with the scammer for a few days and told him his money was waiting for him.... till he left a nasty message and blocked me. I just wanted to waste his time like he did mine..lol
LMAO!!
I have compassion, just not for this story.
NONE AT ALL.
NICE!!!
I guess stealing from people's luggage got old, career criminal for sure.
Sully, I thought the lyrics were "Did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?"?
Oh my, you are correct, how did I screw that up, forgive David Gilmour.lol