COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa — Four Georgia men have been sentenced to federal prison for operating a sophisticated, multi-state fraud scheme that tricked victims, including some in Iowa, into believing they faced arrest warrants unless they paid fake bond fees.
According to a press release Thursday from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa, the scheme ran from March 2022 to April 2024 and involved victims across several states, including Iowa.
Russell Tafron Weatherspoon, 26, Karl Andre Dieudonne, 23, Demonte Tequis Brazil, 32, and Gregory Lamar Scorza, 25, used spoofed phone numbers and impersonated local law enforcement officers to convince victims they had failed to appear in court—often as expert witnesses—and would be arrested if they did not pay a cash bond…