Man skirting prison in North Carolina goes to Vegas and cashes out $92,000, feds say
A 53-year-old man convicted on fraud charges successfully put off reporting to a federal prison complex in Eastern North Carolina while he sought medical treatment, according to prosecutors.
That is until he gave his probation officer the slip.
Shawn Allen Farmer lost his supervised release on Feb. 18 after investigators discovered he took unsanctioned trips to Hawaii and Las Vegas, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina said in a news release. U.S. District Judge Terrence W. Boyle ordered him to report to prison and start serving his sentence as punishment.
Farmer, who is from Greenville, North Carolina, was arrested Jan. 19 and could not be reached for comment. His defense attorney declined to comment in a statement to McClatchy News on Feb. 23.
A judge had sentenced Farmer in May 2021 to 15 months in prison and ordered him to pay $42,783 in restitution after he pleaded guilty to his role in a credit-fraud ring. The judge recommended Farmer serve his sentence at FCI Butner, a federal prison complex about 30 miles north of Raleigh, and he was told to report to prison by July 26, 2021.
But prosecutors said he was “released to seek medical care before reporting to prison.” They did not elaborate on his medical condition.
Under the terms of his release, Farmer was to be supervised by the U.S. Probation Office and could not leave the Eastern District of North Carolina. He was also barred from contacting his co-defendants, applying for new lines of credit or government benefits and sending or receiving mail for other people.
It wasn’t until January that members of the Covid Fraud Benefits Task Force realized Farmer had broken the terms of his release agreement.
Prosecutors said he went to Hawaii, where he got a driver’s license, and Las Vegas, where he reportedly cashed out $92,000 at casinos.
“Significantly, when identifying himself for tax purposes, Farmer utilized a Social Security number that did not belong to him,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. “At the time of these events, Farmer still owed more than $42,000 on his federal criminal judgment.”
A warrant for his arrest was subsequently issued.
The case against Farmer dates to November 2020, when he was accused alongside several others of running a credit-fraud ring involving stolen identities. The alleged scheme involved several members of the same family in Wake County — including a real estate agent and an online pastor, The News & Observer reported.
Prosecutors said the group opened credit card accounts with stolen identities and cashed them out with prepaid card purchases before defaulting on the payments. Victims of the fraud, which lasted from July 2017 to August 2021, included Lowe’s credit card provider Synchrony Bank, Capital One and Discover, according to The N&O.
Charging documents also show Farmer was accused of filing bogus documents alongside several applications for an Economic Injury Disaster Loan during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Farmer pleaded guilty to charges of false, fictitious and fraudulent claims, bank fraud and aiding and abetting in January 2021.
This story was originally published February 23, 2022 at 1:31 PM with the headline "Man skirting prison in North Carolina goes to Vegas and cashes out $92,000, feds say."
