BENTON, Ill. – A U.S. District judge has sentenced a St. Louis woman to 12 months and one day in prison after she admitted to visiting credit unions in the Metro East area of Illinois and using fake identification documents to take out loans.
According to court documents, Toneka D. Prince, 20, pled guilty to one count of falsely obtaining property owned by a financial institution and one count of aggravated identity theft. The U.S. Secret Service was involved in the investigation
The court documents indicate Prince engaged in a scheme to defraud a credit union using identification documents of two victims in her attempts to take out loans. The identity-theft victims’ information would first be used to fill out a loan application line. Once the loan was approved, Prince would enter the credit union and pretend to be the victim in order to collect the money, authorities said.
Prosecutors said that on June 24, 2022, Prince visited First Community Credit in Glen Carbon, Ill. to collect the cash from the approved loan. She presented a fake Illinois driver’s license with a victim’s real identifiable information and successfully obtained a cash loan of $9,800, prosecutors said.
Apprehended at Credit Union
In addition, court documents state that on June 28, 2022, Prince went to the First Community Credit Union in Fairview Heights and signed one victim’s name on a loan application for $9,900. In the application, Prince used a fake temporary Illinois driver’s license and fake Spire gas bill with the victim’s real social security number and date of birth included, court documents stated.
Law enforcement officers apprehended Prince at the credit union in Fairview Heights, the documents indicate.
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