‘Gang member’ serving prison sentence scammed woman in Florida out of thousands, feds say
A woman was duped into depositing more than $12,000 into a bitcoin ATM machine after she got a call from someone posing as a Florida deputy, federal prosecutors said.
The Sarasota resident was scammed by a man incarcerated inside a Georgia prison and his female “associate” outside of prison in a scheme known as a “jury duty scam,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida.
Anthony Sanders, a 28-year-old “documented gang member,” was serving a seven-year sentence for involuntary manslaughter, unlawful acts of violence in a penal institution and violating Georgia’s “street gang terrorism act” when he’s accused of defrauding the woman, prosecutors wrote in court filings.
Sanders, of McRae-Helena, Georgia, and his co-defendant, Marlita Andrews, a 28-year-old Macon, Georgia, resident, were both indicted on one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a Jan. 8 news release.
Information regarding their legal representation wasn’t immediately available.
Sanders was released from Telfair State Prison in McRae-Helena, about a 125-mile drive west from Savannah, on Dec. 14, state Department of Corrections records show.
Andrews was arrested on the wire fraud conspiracy charge on Dec. 12 and Sanders was arrested Jan. 2, court records show.
The jury duty scam
In January 2024, the woman reported to authorities that she lost more than $12,000 in a “warrant scam,” prosecutors wrote in a motion to detain Sanders ahead of trial.
She said a caller posing as a deputy with the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office in Florida told her there was a warrant out for her arrest “because she missed jury duty,” according to prosecutors
To resolve the warrant, the caller told her to make a payment at a “Bonding Transition Center” — which was actually a bitcoin ATM machine where cryptocurrencies can be purchased and sold, prosecutors said.
The woman was tricked into depositing thousands of dollars as cryptocurrency, then her money was transferred to a bitcoin wallet linked to Andrews, according to prosecutors.
A day later, Andrews distributed the woman’s money to multiple accounts, prosecutors said.
According to prosecutors, Sanders told Andrews where to send the money.
He communicated with her using phones he had access to while incarcerated and had “directed Andrews to purchase prepaid phones to send to him in prison, via a drone,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
The Sarasota woman is one of many across the U.S. who’ve reported being victimized by jury duty scams, according to prosecutors.
“Law enforcement investigation has revealed that inmates in Georgia state prisons are participating in this scheme by using illegally obtained prepaid phones and that associates outside the prison may assist with receiving the funds or transferring them to other accounts,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
Authorities in Sarasota, about a 60-mile drive south from Tampa, received more than 30 reports from various victims of jury duty scams in 2024, prosecutors said. Collectively, these individuals reported losing more than $150,000, according to prosecutors.
Sanders is a “serious danger to the community,” prosecutors wrote in his detention motion, based on his criminal history.
“Sanders continued to commit criminal offenses while in prison, targeting numerous victims through a fraudulent scam,” the filing says.
.jpg)