UNITED STATES ATTORNEY'S OFFICE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA ALEXANDRIA    NEWPORT NEWS    NORFOLK    RICHMOND CHUCK ROSENBERG, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY

Philadelphia Man Sentenced for Federal Bank Fraud Conspiracy and Identity Theft Charges

( Richmond , VA ) -Antar Bush, age 27, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was sentenced today for his role in a bank fraud and identity theft scheme. United States District Judge Henry E. Hudson sentenced Bush to 75 months of imprisonment. This sentence includes a consecutive term of twenty-four months mandated by his conviction for Aggravated Identity Theft. Bush was also sentenced to five years of supervised release and ordered, along with his codefendant, to pay a total of $373,892.95 in restitution. The sentence was announced by Chuck Rosenberg, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
In January 2008, codefendant Kevin Brown, age 31 of Willingboro, New Jersey, was sentenced, on the same charges, to 5 years confinement, 5 years of supervised release and ordered to pay restitution in a total amount of $378,000.00.

Bush has acknowledged participation in the conspiracy from December 2005, until March 2007. The scheme involved the use of counterfeit checks that were presented to area merchants. The checks were created using the routing numbers of legitimate financial institutions. When passing the bad checks, the defendants presented fictitious out-of-state driver’s licenses in the names of real individuals. The conspiracy is responsible for negotiating a total of $378,785.28 in counterfeit checks for transactions occurring in Virginia and other states along the East coast.

The case is being investigated by law enforcement officers from the Henrico County Division of Police and the United States Postal Inspection Service, as members of the Metro-Richmond Identity Theft Task Force. In addition, the Task Force received investigative assistance from the National White Collar Crime Center based in Glen Allen, Virginia. Other member agencies of the Task Force include: the United States Secret Service; the Federal Bureau of Investigation; Bureau of Diplomatic Security, U.S. Department of State; the Richmond Police Department; and the Chesterfield County Police Department. Federal prosecutions for the Task Force are handled by the United States Attorney’s Office and the Office of the Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Virginia. For more information on the Task Force, including assistance for victims of identity theft, visit: www.richmondIDtheft.com.

Special Assistant U.S. Attorney and Senior Assistant Virginia Attorney General David W. Tooker is prosecuting the case on behalf of the United States.