Iowa (RI) — Iowa authorities have helped solve a texting scam run from inside a Georgia prison.
Police departments in Iowa City, Council Bluffs, and Omaha, along with the Iowa State Patrol and the FBI investigated what turned out to be a nationwide scam. The US Justice Department says the scam was led by 26-year-old Russell Weatherspoon, who was in a Georgia state prison. Drones were used to deliver cell phones in the prison yard. Prosecutors say that for over two years, inmates sent text messages using the names and phone numbers of local law enforcement officers. Victims were told they had failed to appear at a trial to testify as an expert witness and would be arrested if they didn’t post a cash bond. A victim in Minnesota told police she met two men across the street from a county office building — and paid the scammers $16,000.
A judge based in Iowa has sentenced Weatherspoon and three other Georgia men to federal prison and ordered them to pay restitution to victims. Charges have been filed against a fifth man accused of being part of the scam, but he hasn’t been arrested.
KIWA Staff Photo
