KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - An Atlanta man has been sentenced to 12 years in prison in a gang scheme that used homeless people to cash counterfeit checks.
The U.S. attorney's office announced Tuesday that 47-year-old Marion Norwood was sentenced Monday for leading crews into Kansas City in late 2012 and early 2013. He also was ordered to pay more than $200,000 in restitution.
Through the scheme, criminals broke into shared mailboxes outside business and industrial parks and looked for payroll checks or payments to vendors. With checks in hand, printers - like Norwood - duplicated the checks on computers.
Two other crew members then went to homeless shelters, looking for someone willing to cash the checks. Next, the names of the homeless people were sent to the printer.