Newark man sentenced for role in $1M credit card, identity theft scheme

Matthew Fazelpoor//May 1, 2023//

PHOTO: DEPOSIT PHOTOS

Matthew Fazelpoor//May 1, 2023//

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Dashaun Brown, 29, of Newark, was sentenced April 28 for his role in a scheme to take credit cards from the mail and then steal victims’ identities in order to use the stolen credit cards to make hundreds of thousands of dollars of retail and online purchases.

Brown was sentenced to 82 months in prison, three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $330,391 in restitution for his role in the scheme.

The Essex County man was convicted last April on four counts of a superseding indictment against him including:

Conspiracy to commit bank fraud;
Bank fraud;
Receipt and possession of stolen mail; and
Aggravated identity theft in connection with bank fraud.

Brown was also acquitted on one count of bank fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft.

According to court documents and statements released by prosecutors last year following that weeklong trial in Newark federal court, Brown – along with conspirators, Jahad Salter and Hakir Brown – engaged United States Postal Service (USPS) employees, including Khadijah Banks-Oneal, to steal credit cards from the mail in exchange for compensation.

“Once they obtained the stolen credit cards, Dashaun Brown and his conspirators posed as the accountholders of the stolen credit cards when calling the banks that issued the cards and used personal identifying information belonging to the accountholders to activate the cards and to obtain or change information about the stolen credit cards,” prosecutors said. “They then used the stolen credit cards to make purchases at retail stores in New Jersey and elsewhere, resulting in attempted losses of over $1 million.”

Salter, Brown and Banks-Oneal previously pleaded guilty for their respective roles in this scheme. In November, Salter was sentenced to 60 months in prison while Brown was sentenced to 31 months behind bars.