A federal appeals court has upheld a 30-month prison sentence for a Cleveland man who funded a lifestyle of drugs and deception by convincing an elderly woman he was being held for ransom.
Terrell Lamar Williams, who was already on supervised release for a previous drug trafficking conviction, orchestrated a heart-wrenching scam against a woman identified in court documents as R.A. Despite having known Williams since he was in kindergarten, R.A. became the target of a years-long fraud where Williams claimed he was being kidnapped, starved, and tortured.
The scheme was uncovered after a local sheriff’s office alerted Williams’s probation officer to a report that he was being held against his will. While Williams initially told his officer he was safe, a subsequent search of his phone revealed a much darker reality. Investigators found a mountain of text messages sent to R.A. detailing fake abductions and pleas for money to secure his release…