SCRANTON — This is an official press release from the U.S. Department of Justice (USAO - Pennsylvania, Middle), published as received.
SCRANTON - The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that on July 23, 2019, Kevin Rhodes, age 25, of New Columbia, Pennsylvania, received a sentence of time served and two years of supervised release, including six months of home confinement, by United States District Court Judge Malachy E. Mannion, for conspiring to commit bank fraud.
According to United States Attorney David J. Freed, Rhodes and several other individual conspired to commit bank fraud between October 1, 2016 and December 7, 2017. The conspirators purchased relatively low-value money orders, worth between approximately $3 and $18, and altered their values to be $1,000. The altered money orders were deposited into bank accounts owned and controlled by the defendants and their conspirators, and subsequently withdrawn in cash. The scheme resulted in approximately $141,000 worth of altered money orders being deposited, including $15,000 worth of altered money orders in Rhodes’s bank account. Rhodes also was connected to another $5,000 worth of altered money orders deposited in another individual’s account.
Judge Mannion also ordered Rhodes to pay $14,890.72 in restitution.
Rhodes’s co-defendant, Trae Reed, was previously sentenced to 10 months’ imprisonment for his involvement in the scheme. Two other codefendants, Dominique Brown and Jayla Johnson, have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing.
The matter was investigated by the United States Postal Inspectors. Assistant United States Attorney Phillip J. Caraballo prosecuted the case.
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