A Fort Lauderdale, Florida man was sentenced on May 6 in U.S. District Court in Portland for his involvement in bank fraud and aggravated identity theft.
U.S. District Judge Stacey D. Neumann sentenced Richard Harris, 23, to 32 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. Harris was also ordered to pay $31,400 in restitution after pleading guilty on December 16, 2025.
Court records show that Harris and a coconspirator, Paul Logugune, broke into unattended vehicles to steal purses and wallets containing driver’s licenses and checkbooks. The two then forged checks using the stolen checkbooks and made them payable to the names found on the stolen licenses. They recruited others to cash these forged checks at branches of a federal credit union throughout southern Maine by impersonating the victims with the stolen IDs.
Logugune also pleaded guilty for his role and was sentenced on August 29, 2024, to two and a half years in prison with an order to pay over $32,000 in restitution.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated this case with help from the Freeport Police Department. The U.S. Attorney for the District of Maine prosecutes federal crimes such as this one and handles civil matters involving the government while collecting debts owed to federal agencies; it collaborates closely with law enforcement across different levels throughout Maine according to the official website.
The office covers all of Maine through its locations in Portland and Bangor while building alliances among federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies according to its official website.
