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MEMPHIS (AP) — A Tennessee man has been sentenced to more than 17 years in federal prison for using the identities of dead people to take over credit card, savings and stock accounts and steal hundreds of thousands of dollars, prosecutors said.
James Jackson, 58, was sentenced in Memphis federal court Wednesday after he was convicted in September 2019 of charges including mail fraud, aggravated identity theft, and theft of mail, the U.S. attorney’s office said in a news release Thursday.
In 2014 and 2015, Jackson researched online obituaries for information about dead people, and then used the information to take over their financial accounts.
Jackson, of Memphis, would impersonate dead women and men to convince customer service representatives at banks, credit card companies and financial firms to mail new bank and credit cards to vacant homes and hotels in the Memphis area.
Jackson had prior federal convictions for fraud in New York and Tennessee.