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A Georgia man was sentenced on Monday to 4 yr in federal jail for serving to an inmate defraud a billionaire Californian movie producer of $11 million, in one of many largest behind-bars crimes in U.S. historical past.
Eldridge Bennett, 66, of Lawrenceville, pleaded responsible in April to serving to veteran felony Arthur Cofield, 32, along with his elaborate fraud.
Cofield, born in a tough district of Atlanta, has been behind bars since 2007.
He was initially given a 14-year sentence for robbing a financial institution, when he was 16. In the summertime of 2018 he was charged with arranging for a hitman to shoot useless a person flirting with a girlfriend, and pleaded not responsible: the case is ongoing, and he stays in jail.
Bennett’s daughter, Eliayah Bennett, 28, had married Cofield on-line in July 2019: she instructed The New Yorker she was ‘a reasonably lady in a strip membership’, including: ‘Folks know me. I danced for large individuals and stuff like that.’
Arthur Colfield has been behind bars since 2007. On Monday, one among his accomplices, Eldridge Bennett, 66, was sentenced to 4 years for his position within the fraud
Sidney Kimmel is seen on the premiere of The Place Past the Pines, which he produced, in March 2013. Kimmel was defrauded by Cofield – though the financial institution instantly repaid the misplaced $11 million
Kimmel is seen in 2012 with Amanda Seyfried on the premiere of Gone, which he additionally produced
She was recruited by one among Cofield’s girlfriends to ‘have a girl-on-girl encounter in entrance of him on FaceTime,’ a detective on the case instructed the journal.
Cofield supported Eliayah and her mother and father financially, and in the summertime of 2020 they purchased a $4.5 million mansion in Buckhead, an prosperous a part of North Atlanta, which is residence to outdated and new cash households.
Cofield funded the life-style due to a scheme performed through cellphones smuggled into his cell.
He would arrange financial institution accounts utilizing stolen identities, after which ring the financial institution and switch money from the real account to the faux one, giving particulars comparable to social safety quantity, date of start, deal with and mom’s maiden title.
One in all his victims was Sidney Kimmel, a 95-year-old businessman who made his $1.5 billion fortune in clothes, earlier than changing into a film producer, with movies together with Moneyball, The Lincoln Lawyer, and Loopy Wealthy Asians.
The $4.5 million mansion in Buckhead, Georgia, which Cofield purchased
The Buckhead property featured a tower of champagne, which was crammed with Moet & Chandon when Eliayah Bennett lived there, The New Yorker reported
Cofield created a web-based brokerage account in Kimmel’s title, then known as his financial institution, Charles Schwab, claiming to be Kimmel, with a view to join the brand new account to a checking account.
Cofield then transferred $11 million into the brand new account, and used the cash to purchase gold cash from an Idaho provider.
The gold was flown to Atlanta, and the Bennetts collected it from the airport.
Schwab later reimbursed Kimmel.
Cofield’s plot unravelled when guards discovered his cell telephones, and he was indicted in December 2020 on costs of aggravated identification theft, conspiracy to commit financial institution fraud, cash laundering, and conspiracy to commit cash laundering.
He has agreed a plea deal in April this yr of 151 months for the Kimmel fraud, and one other in Alabama.
He is because of be sentenced on January 5.
Eliayah Bennett has pleaded responsible to concealing wire fraud, and is scheduled for sentencing on January 19.
Her father on Monday apologized for ‘unhealthy judgment’ and stated he by no means realized he was committing the crime of cash laundering.
‘To place all of it in a nutshell, I used to be ignorant to the cost of cash laundering,’ he stated.
‘I assumed I used to be only a courier. I simply made a alternative. At my age, I ought to have recognized higher.’
He added: ‘One of many stupidest issues I ever did.’
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