St. Clair County man sentenced for stealing identities, stiffing utility companies
A Cahokia man who pleaded guilty last year to mail fraud and identity theft charges was sentenced Tuesday in federal court.
Isaac Sanders, 40, a park security officer in Cahokia, pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and aggravated identity theft in the Southern District of Illinois in December. He had been accused of using his victims’ personal information to open utility accounts on properties he owned.
He was sentenced Tuesday to serve one year and one day in a federal prison. Tamecia Buckley, a co-conspirator in the crimes, was prosecuted separately and sentenced to 75 months in federal prison.
“Sanders and his co-conspirator, Tamecia Buckley, used stolen identities and social security numbers of real people to open utility accounts for electric and gas services at Sanders’ properties,” according to a press release from the court.
The victims did not reside at the addresses. All of the bills went to Sanders’ address “so the victims had no way of knowing the financial damage being wrought to their names,” the court’s release said.
According to the criminal complaint, after the bills went unpaid and utilities were turned off by the providers, Sanders would pay Buckley to open new accounts using different stolen identities.
In all, Sanders used the identities of six different people between 2014 to 2017, the complaint alleged. Once, he called the utility company directly claiming to be the son of the person listed on the account and stating falsely that his victim was in the hospital.
Sanders was ordered to pay restitution of more than $5,000 in addition to serving three years of supervised release.
