A 28-year-old Chicago man who showed up at an elderly Grimes, Iowa, couple’s home to collect a lockbox of gold coins worth $73,620 has been sentenced to probation and ordered to pay the couple $83,763.42 in restitution, the Iowa Insurance Division says. Ali Mohammed Murtuza Syed was arrested in an undercover sting while an extortion attempt against the couple was still under way. A Polk County District Court judge sentenced him on Oct. 28.
What did the courier plead to, and what did he get?
Syed pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit a non-forcible felony, according to the division. The court gave him a deferred judgment, probation and the restitution order. The division’s announcement does not say how long the probation lasts, whether any jail time was suspended or what makes up the restitution total, which is $10,143.42 more than the value of the gold.
The announcement describes Syed as a courier in a multi-state elder fraud operation, not as the person who ran the scheme. It lists the restitution as owed to the victims, the couple whose savings were targeted, and says nothing more about the terms of his deferred judgment…