California Man’s Get-Rich-Quick Scheme Ends in Get-Poor-Quick Fashion

There is a peculiar and rather persistent belief among a class of men that banks exist as charitable institutions designed to distribute money to those with the gall to take it. One such gentleman, Mr. Sterlyn Lee Smith Jr., has lately found this assumption sorely tested and ultimately refuted by the United States District Court.

Mr. Smith, aged 49, evidently unwilling to earn an honest living in those years, devised a scheme that was neither particularly novel nor excessively clever but did have the singular quality of lasting nearly six years before meeting its inevitable conclusion. The plan was simple enough: he and his associates would purchase money orders at post offices in California and Nevada, tamper with them until they bore an amount far exceeding their original modest sum, and then deposit these dubious instruments into bank accounts opened in the names of unwitting or willing accomplices. Having thus introduced fiction into the world of finance, they would promptly withdraw the ill-gotten gains before the banks could discern that their deposits were more ink than integrity.

The grand deception, conducted between July 2013 and February 2019, saw Mr. Smith and his compatriots attempt to deposit no fewer than 1,200 forged money orders, amounting to over $1.2 million. Unfortunately for Mr. Smith, the resilience of his scheme was not matched by its wisdom, and he found himself convicted on two counts of bank fraud—one for each financial institution he so boldly insulted.

For his trouble, he has been awarded a five-year sojourn in federal accommodations, where he will have ample time to reflect upon the finer points of banking that he so grievously misunderstood. Additionally, he is now indebted with $432,482.63 in restitution, which he will no doubt find hard to come by now that his days of conjuring money from thin air have come to an unceremonious end.

Upon his release, he will have three years of supervised freedom, a condition, considering his past ambitions, may feel as restrictive as his current confinement.