NORFOLK, Va. – A Virginia Beach man was sentenced today to 45 months in prison for mail fraud, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft.
Lamont Godfrey, 43, of Virginia Beach, acted in concert with Eugene Johnson, 46, of Manteca, California; Shunmanique Willis, 44, of Richmond, Texas; and Alonzo Williams, 46, of Pineville, Louisiana, to create counterfeit certificates from the Mid-Atlantic Maritime Academy (MAMA).
Godfrey worked as the Chief Administrator for the MAMA, a private state-of-the-art maritime training center, offering mariners over 100 U.S. Coast Guard-approved deck and engineering courses needed for merchant mariners to hold various positions on merchant vessels.
“The defendant and his co-conspirators devised a dangerous fraud scheme that enriched themselves at the expense of public safety,” said Raj Parekh, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. “By selling counterfeit merchant mariner certificates in exchange for cash payments, the defendant and others permitted untrained and unqualified mariners to perform jobs onboard merchant vessels they were not entitled to hold.
Godfrey used this position to create fake MAMA course certificates for mariners who had never taken the MAMA courses, in exchange for thousands of dollars in payments. The mariners would receive the fake certificates along with instructions on how to load them in the Coast Guard systems and be credited with a fraudulent Coast Guard qualification.
Johnson, Willis, and Williams worked with Godfrey as brokers to find additional mariners willing to buy the fake certificates. In exchange for their efforts, Johnson, Willis, and Williams all received a cut of the illicit proceeds from the scheme. In total, the conspiracy netted over $394,000 in profits, $249,000 of which directly went to Godfrey, from the production of these counterfeit MAMA certificates, and involved over 252 mariners purchasing fraudulent qualifications.
Williams was sentenced on June 24 to 27 months in prison for his role in the conspiracy. Willis was sentenced on June 28 to 18 months in prison for his role in the conspiracy. Johnson was sentenced on August 3 to 29 months in prison for his role in the conspiracy.
A copy of this press release is located on the website of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Key Facts
- State: Virginia
- Category: Fraud & Financial Crimes
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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