A pair of defendants were found guilty yesterday by a federal jury after being accused of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud and mail fraud in a scheme where they scammed individuals with a bogus system that purportedly would get their consumer debts, like credit cards, auto loans, and mortgages, discharged without having to be paid.
The two defendants — Willie Lamont Hicks, aka Will Woodward, and Mary Ann Mendoza, aka Mary Ann Manuel — are each facing up to 20 years in prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and mail fraud and 20 years in prison for each of four counts of wire fraud. The pair will be sentenced in January.
For six years, the two — who represented themselves as partners and husband and wife — held in-person training sessions to teach individuals how to get their debts discharged. Hicks, who claimed to be an attorney, told victims that there was a number on the back of their Social Security cards and birth certificates that unlocked access to special bank accounts with funds owed to them by the U.S. government.
All of those secrets, along with advice about how to create and use a trust into which the victims could transfer their assets without transferring any of their debts, cost the victims a fee equal to a percentage of the amount of debt they were carrying. Victims paid for the advice using cash, checks, and credit, while others liquidated their retirement savings, leased apartments, and purchased vehicles and office supplies for the defendants. One victim transferred almost $100,000 to the defendants. In total, victims paid the defendants more than $1 million.
The defendants used the victims’ personal information without their knowledge or permission and provided the victims with fraudulent documents, including Internal Revenue Service forms, that were allegedly necessary to have the debts discharged. The defendants mailed the fraudulent paperwork to the creditors, lenders, and IRS purporting to get the debts discharged.
