The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has sentenced a Nevada man to 151 months in prison after he pled guilty in connection with his role in a transnational fraud and money laundering conspiracy that targeted over 3,300 members of the U.S. military community resulting in $1.5 million in losses.
Fredrick Brown, 40, of Las Vegas, was sentenced for one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering following Brown’s guilty plea on Oct. 29, 2019.
According to court documents, Brown conspired with four other individuals to steal money belonging to military members (as well as military dependents and civilians employed by the U.S. Department of Defense). Brown, a former civilian medical records technician and administrator with the U.S. Army at the 65th Medical Brigade, Yongsan Garrison, South Korea, admitted that between July 2014 and September 2015, he stole the personal identifying information (PII) of thousands of military members, including names, Social Security numbers, military ID numbers, dates of birth and contact information.
Brown also admitted to capturing the PII by taking digital photographs of his computer screen while he was logged into a military electronic health records database and, subsequently, providing the stolen data to Philippines-based co-defendant Robert Wayne Boling Jr. Boling and others, who used the information to access DOD and Veterans Affairs benefits sites and steal millions of dollars.
Brown’s actions resulted in an established financial loss to victims of more than $1.5 million, with the scheme targeting more than 3,300 military-affiliated individuals. Victims included at least eight general officers, as well as numerous disabled veterans, who were targeted because of their receipt of greater service-related benefits.
In addition to a prison term, Chief Judge Orlando L. Garcia of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas ordered Brown to pay $2,331,639.85 in restitution and be placed on supervised release for a period of three years after completing his prison term.
