Ex-Woodmere mayor, MLB pitcher, sentenced to nearly 3 years in prison for buying credit cards on dark web, buying $10k in gas for Amazon truck

CLEVELAND, Ohio— Former Woodmere Mayor and Florida Marlins pitcher Charles Smith will spend practically three years in federal jail for getting tons of of stolen bank card numbers off the darkish net and utilizing the data to pay for greater than $10,000 price of gasoline for his Amazon supply truck.

Smith, who in 2002 attended the grand opening of the federal courthouse in Cleveland as a dignitary, informed U.S. District Choose Christopher Boyko on Thursday that he by no means thought he would return as a legal defendant.

“I’m positively embarrassed by this second,” Smith mentioned. “I’m used to main my group. However folks do what they do to outlive.”

Boyko chastised Smith for breaking the general public’s belief at a time when many Individuals are more and more distrustful of presidency officers, for Smith’s use of the darkish net and for stealing from unsuspecting folks.

He sentenced Smith, 52, to 2 years and 9 months in federal jail and three years on post-prison supervision. Smith beforehand pleaded responsible to aggravated identification theft and fraud.

The plea settlement referred to as for a compulsory two years in jail, and Boyko cut up the distinction between the prosecutor’s suggestion for an extra six to 12 months. Boyko allowed Smith to report back to jail at a date to be decided by the Bureau of Prisons.

Boyko additionally mentioned that lots of the legal defendants that come by the court docket had tough backgrounds, and plenty of fought for survival, rising up in poverty and in abusive households. Not so, with Smith, Boyko mentioned.

He grew up in Cleveland with two loving mother and father, graduated from John Adams Excessive Faculty in 1988 and had no substance abuse or psychological well being points.

“Perhaps you felt determined, however that’s when life examined you probably the most,” Boyko mentioned. “And also you failed that check.”

Assistant U.S. Lawyer Payum Doroodian additionally rejected Smith’s assertion that he dedicated the crimes out of desperation, saying that his spouse had a profitable profession and that Smith made $250,000 taking part in professional baseball in the course of the 2001 season.

“It’s heartbreaking to have a person who’s imagined to be the most effective in our group to return in right here and say that he acted out of desperation,” Doroodian mentioned. “That’s unacceptable. It was completely greed.”

Smith began his skilled baseball profession in 1991 within the Houston Astros group and performed 9 seasons within the minor leagues earlier than making his big-league debut in 2000. He pitched two seasons for the Marlins and went 11-11 with a 3.84 ERA in 34 video games.

He later performed professional baseball in China and labored because the pitching coach for the Lancaster Jets, the Boston Purple Sox’s Class A affiliate. He filed for chapter in 2009 and labored for a number of years as a truck driver.

Smith served because the mayor of the tiny japanese Cleveland suburb from 2009 to 2017. He returned to metropolis authorities as a metropolis councilman in 2019, about the identical time when investigators mentioned he began his scheme.

Smith purchased greater than 600 bank card accounts on the darkish net and stole at the least $10,600. Doroodian mentioned that quantity solely accounts for gasoline he purchased on the Sheetz gasoline station in Twinsburg. Investigators couldn’t decide how a lot he spent at different gasoline stations that didn’t maintain as detailed data.

The scheme got here to mild after a Berea resident reported to Twinsburg police on March 14, 2020, that somebody had used their bank card to purchase gasoline at Sheetz. Officers reviewed surveillance video and, three days later, arrested Smith as he tried to purchase extra gasoline on the similar station.

Police discovered 24 faux bank cards in his truck, together with an encoding machine. Regardless of his arrest, Smith continued shopping for stolen account numbers from the darkish net, a portion of the web that requires particular servers to entry and permits customers to stay fully nameless.

He purchased $260 extra in gasoline till federal brokers raided his dwelling a few 12 months later.

“If anybody ought to know higher, it’s you,” Boyko mentioned. “A public servant? Oh boy. That hurts.”

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