An Atlanta man received a 57-month prison sentence, followed by five years of supervised release, for bank fraud and aggravated identity theft. He was also ordered to pay $161,401.17 in restitution, as announced by U.S. Attorney Kurt Alme.
Stanford Wilvin Lightfoot, 33, pleaded guilty to the charges in November 2024. “The government alleged in court documents that for approximately 5 months in 2023, Stanford Lightfoot was a member of a large fraud ring that had been defrauding banks in Montana, Maine, and Missouri.”
U.S. District Judge Susan P. Watters oversaw the case. In various locations, including Belgrade, Bozeman, and Livingston, Lightfoot and associates traveled from their base in Atlanta, Georgia. They recruited local homeless individuals with valid ID cards and involved them in fraudulent activities. "Once there, they would recruit local homeless individuals who possessed valid ID cards. They would then take these homeless individuals to local banks and provide them with fraudulent checks from real accounts," the court documents outlined.
The operation included forging checks and recruiting vulnerable people to cash them. “These checks all possessed forged signatures of real people and were, therefore, means of identification. The homeless individuals would then attempt to cash the checks and, if successful, would provide the money to Lightfoot and his coconspirators.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office prosecuted the case with an investigation conducted by the FBI, along with police departments in Livingston, Belgrade, and Bozeman.
