Timothy T. Duax U.S. Attorney | U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa
An accountant and adjunct business instructor from Scranton, Pennsylvania, has been sentenced to federal prison for her involvement in a fraud and money laundering scheme. Margo Ann Williams, 63, was sentenced in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, following a jury verdict on September 12, 2024. She was found guilty of bank fraud, multiple counts of money laundering, engaging in monetary transactions with unlawfully derived property, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
The trial revealed that between December 2022 and July 2023, five victims had their electronic payments misdirected due to hacked email accounts. These victims included a Cedar Rapids church, two businesses, a non-profit organization, and an individual. The hackers sent "spoofed" emails that appeared legitimate but contained fraudulent instructions for wire and ACH transactions. Unaware of the deception, the victims wired funds to accounts controlled by Williams.
In one instance from June 2023, a Cedar Rapids church was deceived into wiring over $466,000 to Williams's shell corporation during its campus renovation project. Other victims included entities across Colorado, Washington state, Montana, and Pennsylvania.
Williams opened multiple bank accounts under various names as banks discovered the fraud and closed her accounts. At trial, she claimed she acted under the direction of a famous British actor with whom she allegedly had a romantic relationship. Williams earned approximately $25,000 from the scheme and made personal purchases with the stolen funds.
Judge Leonard T. Strand sentenced Williams to 48 months in prison and ordered her to pay $594,037.41 in restitution. Following her imprisonment term without parole possibility in the federal system, she will serve three years of supervised release.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Timothy L. Vavricek and Kyndra A. Lundquist after an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Williams remains released on bond pending surrender to the Bureau of Prisons on an unspecified date.
Further court information is available at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl.
