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A Wisconsin man spent decades in prison for a 36-year identity theft scheme that sent victims to prison and even a psychiatric hospital because authorities didn’t believe his story. ing.
Matthew Keirans, 58, could face up to 32 years in prison for making false statements in court. National Credit Union Management Bureau Insurance agencies and severe identity theft.
In 2019, the victim, William Woods, was a homeless man living in Los Angeles who noticed someone was racking up debts using his name. Woods went into a bank in California and said he didn’t want to pay and tried to close the account the Keirans had opened in his name.
Photo of Matthew David Kierans in custody.
He provided his Social Security card and California ID. The branch manager asked the real Woods a series of secret questions. Unable to answer them, Banks called police, according to court records.
Kaylans, who is listed as Woods on the account, told police he did not allow anyone in California to access his bank account. He then faxed a series of fraudulently obtained identification documents to police, according to court records.
Police arrested Woods and charged him with identity theft and impersonation. They claimed Woods was actually called Matthew Kierans, but it’s not clear how police connected Woods or the bank account to that name.
Woods repeatedly challenged the authorities’ impositions on him, so a California judge ruled he was mentally incompetent to stand trial and sent him to a state psychiatric hospital, where he was given psychotropic drugs. Ta.
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Mr. Woods spent 428 days in county jail and 147 days in a psychiatric hospital before agreeing to a no-contest plea and being released. He was ordered to pay a $400 fine and stop using the name William Woods. Still, Woods continued his efforts to regain his identity.
Woods contacted the University of Iowa Hospital, and Keiran and the others used Woods’ identification to find a job, earning him more than $100,000 a year. Security guards there forwarded Woods’ charges to the University of Iowa Police Department.
According to federal prosecutors, Kierans initially claimed in an interview that the victim was “crazy” and “needed help and should be locked up.” However, detectives located Woods’ biological father listed on his birth certificate and tested his father’s DNA against Woods’s. Tests revealed that Woods was the man’s son.
When police questioned Keirens about the DNA evidence, he said, “My life is over” and “everything is gone.” He pleaded guilty this week in a federal case.
The two first met in the late 1980s while working at a hot dog cart in Albuquerque, New Mexico, according to court records. According to court documents, there is no record of the Keilans using their own names or Social Security numbers after 1988, and they began publicly using the name William Woods in 1990.
Over the years, the Keirans, like the Woods, married and had children. Federal prosecutors say the suspect used genealogy websites to research Woods’ family history and used that information to fraudulently obtain a copy of Woods’ Kentucky birth certificate.
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No sentencing date has been set for the federal case, but the Keilans spent 20 days in jail last year on state charges related to Iowa. Meanwhile, a hearing to vacate Woods’ conviction is scheduled for next week in California.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
