Wisconsin guy dealing with many years in the back of bars for id robbery scheme

A Wisconsin guy is dealing with many years in the back of bars for a 36-year id robbery scheme by which the sufferer was once despatched to prison or even a psychological clinic as a result of government didn’t consider his tale. 

Matthew Keirans, 58, faces as much as 32 years in jail for making false statements to a Nationwide Credit score Union Management insured establishment and irritated establish robbery.

In 2019, the sufferer, William Woods, was once homeless guy residing in Los Angeles when he came upon somebody was once racking up debt the usage of his identify. Woods walked right into a California financial institution, mentioned he didn’t’ need to pay, and attempted to near the accounts that Keirans had opened in his identify.

He supplied his social safety card, in addition to his California ID. The department supervisor requested the true Woods a sequence of safety questions. Not able to respond to them, the financial institution known as police, consistent with courtroom data. 

Keirans, indexed as Woods at the account, instructed police he did not give someone in California permission to get right of entry to his financial institution accounts. He then faxed police a sequence of fraudulently got id paperwork, courtroom data display.

Police arrested Woods and charged him with id robbery and false impersonation. They insisted that Woods was once in reality known as Matthew Keirans, although it isn’t transparent how police related Woods or the financial institution accounts to that identify.

As a result of Woods many times disputed the id government foisted upon him, a California pass judgement on discovered him no longer mentally competent to face trial and despatched him to a state psychological clinic, the place he won psychotropic medicine.

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Woods spent 428 days in county prison and 147 days within the psychological clinic earlier than he was once launched after agreeing to a no-contest plea. He was once ordered to pay $400 in fines and to prevent the usage of the identify William Woods. Nonetheless, Woods persisted to push to regain his id. 

Woods reached out to the College of Iowa Health center the place Keirans had used Woods’ ID to get a task and was once incomes greater than $100,000 a yr. Safety there referred Woods’ grievance to the College of Iowa Police. 

Keirans to begin with insisted in an interview that the sufferer was once “loopy” and “wanted lend a hand and will have to be locked up,” federal prosecutors mentioned. However a detective tracked down the organic father indexed on Woods’ delivery certificates and examined the daddy’s DNA in opposition to Woods’ DNA. The check proved Woods was once the person’s son.

When police faced Keirens concerning the DNA proof, he mentioned: “My existence is over” and “The whole thing is long gone.” He pleaded accountable to federal fees this week. 

Courtroom data display the 2 males first met after they each labored at a scorching canine cart in Albuquerque, New Mexico, within the past due Nineteen Eighties. There’s no document of Keirans the usage of his personal identify or social safety quantity after 1988, and he began to publicly suppose the identify William Woods in 1990, courtroom paperwork display. 

Through the years, Keirans married and had a kid, all as Woods. He even used a family tree web page to investigate Woods’ circle of relatives historical past and used that knowledge to fraudulently bought a duplicate of Woods’ Kentucky delivery certificates, federal prosecutors mentioned. 

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A sentencing date has no longer been set within the federal case, however Keirans spent 20 days in prison final yr on comparable state fees in Iowa. In the meantime, a listening to is about for subsequent week in California to vacate Woods’ conviction.

The Related Press contributed to this document.