The scheme started at a sizzling canine stand in 1988.Over the following three many years, Matthew David Keirans would commerce locations with William Donald Woods, steal his id and ship Woods down a path to spend greater than 400 days in jail.On Monday, Keirans pleaded responsible to id theft, admitting to utilizing the false identify in “every aspect of his life.” He now faces as much as 32 years in federal jail.Keirans, 58, used Woods’s id to get insurance coverage, a Social Safety quantity, a beginning certificates, driver’s licenses, credit score, a quick meals job and a checking account, courtroom data say. He allegedly even had a toddler whose final identify is Woods.In 2019, when the true Woods, now 55, realized somebody had amassed $130,000 in debt beneath his id, the sufferer went to the financial institution to attempt to shut his accounts. Keirans then labored to get Woods arrested for stealing his id, and because of this, Woods spent greater than a yr in jail and practically 150 days in a psychological hospital.The case got here to a head final yr, when Woods discovered Keirans labored on the College of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. The well being care system notified police, and a detective “unraveled” the scheme, utilizing DNA proof to show Keirans was not who he mentioned he was, in line with a Justice Division information launch.Keirans initially instructed the detective his sufferer was “crazy” and wanted to be “locked up” earlier than he confessed to the id theft and to offering fraudulent paperwork to assist in Woods’s arrest.Keirans’s legal professional didn’t reply to a request for remark Friday, nor did Woods.In 1990, two years after they met at a sizzling canine stand, Keirans obtained a fraudulent Colorado ID with Woods’s identify and date of beginning, courtroom paperwork present.The grift continued for years. Keirans dwelling as Woods in state after state, and Woods attempting to stay as himself.Keirans racked up tens of hundreds of {dollars} in debt beneath Woods’s identify. In August 2019, Woods, homeless in Los Angeles, went to the financial institution to inform the nationwide chain — unnamed within the go well with — that somebody was utilizing his Social Safety quantity to build up $130,000 in debt beneath his id. He needed to shut his account, and gave the assistant department supervisor his Social Safety card.The worker requested Woods in regards to the location and date he opened the accounts. Woods couldn’t reply.Police arrested Woods and accused him of unlawfully utilizing private info. Additionally they requested Keirans why he’d used completely different center names on some paperwork.The district legal professional in Los Angeles charged Woods with two felonies, accusing him of id theft and false impersonation. He confronted three years of imprisonment.Throughout the trial, as the true Woods continued to insist he was himself, his legal professional instructed the courtroom she doubted his psychological competence to face trial. Months later, in February 2020, a California choose ordered Woods to a psychological hospital, discovering he was not mentally competent to face trial.Throughout the practically two years Woods was in jail after which in a psychological hospital, Keirans requested updates “numerous times.”“I am the person who had their ID compromised,” Keirans wrote in an e mail to an assistant district legal professional.In March 2021, Woods was convicted, pleading no contest in change for his launch. In Might of that yr, the courtroom ordered Woods to solely use his “true name, Matthew Keirans.”However the saga was not but over.Months later, Woods contacted the police division in Hartland, Wis., the place Keirans was dwelling. When Keirans discovered, he wrote to a Los Angeles detective that he was “concerned” the one that “was convicted of stealing my ID and then attempting to alter my bank accounts” knew the place he lived.Hartland police didn’t examine.Woods didn’t hand over. He filed a second identity-theft grievance in September 2022. Keirans responded by calling Woods “Matthew Keirans” and saying his id was nonetheless beneath menace.The charade unraveled in 2023, after Woods contacted Keirans’s employer.In January of that yr, Woods instructed the Iowa hospital system for which Keirans labored remotely that its worker had stolen his id. Keirans responded by telling the assistant district legal professional in Los Angeles that his employer had begun an inner investigation. A detective in Iowa was on the case.Keirans doubled down on his story.Keirans instructed the detective, courtroom paperwork mentioned, that he doubted the officer would have the ability to resolve the difficulty since nobody else had, and that he was superb “with just dealing with it.”The detective then matched Woods’s DNA together with his father’s in Kentucky. Weeks later, he interviewed Keirans, who insisted Woods needs to be “locked up.”The Iowa detective then requested Keirans what his father’s identify was, and he responded by giving the identify of his personal father, not Woods’s. The investigator then revealed the DNA proof.“My life is over,” Keirans responded.Keirans admitted to the rip-off and revealed that he used Ancestry.com to get Woods’s beginning certificates. He stays in custody pending sentencing. He faces not less than two years of imprisonment and a $1.25 million superb.“Everything is gone,” Keirans instructed the detective, after three many years of utilizing one other man’s identify.
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