An Ohio man was sentenced on April 15 to 16 months in federal prison for illegally possessing credit card encoding devices, according to the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Mississippi.
The sentencing highlights ongoing efforts by law enforcement agencies to address financial crimes involving stolen bank card data and device-making equipment.
Court documents show that Sean Matthew Langston, Jr., age 33, of Columbus, Ohio, was arrested in Rankin County after a traffic stop on April 28, 2024. Authorities found Langston and his co-defendant, John Carleton Johnson, Jr., with about 322 gift cards, seventeen reencoded instruments containing stolen bank card data, and two magstripe encoding devices. Surveillance footage showed both men purchasing gift cards at various retail stores in the Jackson metropolitan area using cloned instruments.
A federal grand jury indicted Langston and Johnson on February 20, 2025. Langston pleaded guilty on December 11, 2025 to one count of illegal possession, production or trafficking in device-making equipment with intent to defraud. Johnson pleaded guilty earlier that year and received a sentence of twenty-four months’ imprisonment on November 3. Both defendants were also ordered to pay fines.
United States Attorney Baxter Kruger of the Southern District of Mississippi said the case involved coordination between several agencies including the United States Secret Service Cyber Fraud Task Force—made up of agents from the Secret Service itself as well as investigators from the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office and Bureau of Investigation—with help from state police departments.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kimberly T. Purdie prosecuted this case.
