Zachary O’Brien, Counterfeit Credit Card Scheme, Maryland 2015

Baltimore, Maryland – U.S. District Judge George L. Russell III sentenced Zachary O’Brien, a 31-year-old from the Bronx, New York, to four years in prison, followed by four years of supervised release, for bank fraud conspiracy and aggravated identity theft arising from a scheme to use counterfeit credit cards to purchase merchandise.

The total actual loss resulting from the conspiracy, which operated from at least February to October 2014, was $419,807.14, and the potential loss was over $1.8 million. The conspiracy involved over 250 victims.

O’Brien was one of several individuals involved in the scheme, which used stolen credit card and other personal information of customers of victim financial institutions to purchase items, including Apple iPhones, at retail locations in Maryland and elsewhere.

According to his plea, O’Brien conspired with his co-defendants, Jerry Anderson, Steven Harris, Marquis Johnson, and Steven Tejeda, as well as others, to use stolen credit card and other personal information of customers of victim financial institutions to purchase items, including Apple iPhones, at retail locations in Maryland and elsewhere.

On April 10, 2014, the Baltimore County Police Department (BCPD) responded to a fraud in progress at an Apple Store in Towson, Maryland, where Johnson and Harris purchased iPhones with Visa Vanilla gift cards. Johnson and Harris were arrested and the Visa Vanilla gift cards they used to purchase the phones were recovered and determined to be re-encoded with stolen credit information.

The sentence was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein; Special Agent in Charge Brian Murphy of the United States Secret Service – Baltimore Field Office; Chief James W. Johnson of the Baltimore County Police Department; and Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger.

Zachary O’Brien’s exact criminal charges were bank fraud conspiracy and aggravated identity theft. The city and state involved were Baltimore, Maryland. The exact date was April 23, 2015. The sentence or outcome was four years in prison, followed by four years of supervised release.

The dollar amounts involved in the scheme were $419,807.14 in actual loss and over $1.8 million in potential loss.

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