.S. Department of Justice
United States Attorney Eastern District of Virginia
Chuck Rosenberg
2100 Jamieson Avenue United States Attorney Alexandria, Virginia 22314
(703)299-3700
News Release For Immediate Release
For further information contact Alexandria, Virginia 703-842-4050 March 24, 2006
Chuck Rosenberg, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, announced that Rahqdeika Montana Usan, a/k/a Derrick Nichelson, Malik Shabazz, and "Vegas," was sentenced today to 60 months imprisonment for conspiracy to commit bank fraud and identity theft by U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis, III. In addition, he was ordered to make restitution of $407,890 to CUNA Mutual Insurance Group, $207,186 to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and $17,937 to NIH Federal Credit Union.
In early 2004, Usan fraudulently obtained an internal administrative report from an employee of the FDIC, which listed names, dates of birth and social security numbers for more than 5,000 employees of the FDIC. Beginning in April 2004 and until January 2005, in order to determine which of the FDIC employees had good credit, Usan went to car dealerships located in Virginia and Maryland and paid individuals working at those dealerships to obtain credit reports on a number of the FDIC employees. Based on these credit reports, Usan compiled a list of FDIC employees with good credit. Usan then obtained copies of false Maryland driver's licenses from another person in Maryland for some of those FDIC employees. Thereafter, he approached an employee of the George Washington University branch of the National Institutes of Health Federal Credit Union (NIHFCU) to fraudulently open accounts at, and obtain loans from, NIHFCU under the FDIC employees' names. Because all of the FDIC employees had good credit, NIHFCU granted lines of credit to each of them. Usan then made a series of withdrawals on the lines of credit, obtaining approximately $425,827 from NIHFCU. Because its employees' credit had been put in jeopardy, FDIC contracted with a credit reporting bureau to provide fraud protection to all affected FDIC employees.
A NIHFCU employee was previously sentenced to 24 months imprisonment based on her participation in the scheme. Her sentence was reduced as a result of her cooperation against Usan. Authorities are continuing the investigation of others involved.
The investigation was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Office of Inspector General. Assistant United States Attorney Michael E. Rich prosecuted the case.
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Last Updated 3/24/06 contact the OIG