(StraightNews.org) – A former FBI agent has been jailed for seven years for defrauding a woman out of over $700,000. The Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General (DOJ-ID) said that William Roy Stone ran a “secret probation scheme” and, together with coconspirator Joseph Eventino DeLeon, told the woman they were assigned to administer her six-year “secret probation.”
The conspirators persuaded the woman to text them daily reports on her activities and charged her for administrative services and expenses. Prosecutors said the female victim, identified only as CT, was thoroughly convinced by the sophisticated fraudulent scheme Stone and DeLeon had concocted.
The two men went as far as staging fake calls with a fictitious judge, spying on the victim, and enlisting another fraudster to impersonate a US Drug Enforcement officer. They also warned CT that she would lose her children and go to jail if she told anyone about the arrangements.
In a press release, the United States Attorney’s Office of the Northern District of Texas stated that Stone stole over $700,000 while DeLeon amassed $50,000. They had convinced the victim to distance herself from her family and to transfer inherited assets from a trust fund to her own account and write checks out of them. The Attorney’s Office confirmed those checks were admitted as evidence in the trial.
The criminal proceedings were conducted last August, but the fraudsters were finally sentenced on February 9 this year. The federal jury found them guilty of wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, engaging in criminally derived property transactions, and false officer impersonation. Stone was given seven years in February, and DeLeon is due for sentencing in March.
Mr. Stone, 65, retired from the FBI in 2015 and was indicted in May 2021. When the case came to trial, it lasted 12 days, and it took just four hours for the jury to return a guilty verdict. The Justice Department said the FBI provided “valuable assistance” to the investigation.
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