A fed­er­al judge has sen­tenced a Ja­maican cit­i­zen to prison for op­er­at­ing a Ja­maica-based fraud­u­lent lot­tery scheme.

US Dis­trict Court Judge, Robert J. Con­rad, sen­tenced40 year-old Lin­ton Stew­art to sev­en years in prison af­ter he had ini­tial­ly plead­ed guilty on Au­gust 3, 2023, to one count of con­spir­a­cy to com­mit mail and wire fraud, in the West­ern Dis­trict of North Car­oli­na.

Stew­art was al­so or­dered to pay US$1,104,041.74 in resti­tu­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to court doc­u­ments, and as part of his plea, Stew­art ac­knowl­edged that from ap­prox­i­mate­ly 2010 through at least Au­gust 2016, he led a fraud­u­lent lot­tery fraud scheme in which he and his co-con­spir­a­tors tar­get­ed vic­tims in the Unit­ed States.

Stew­art ad­mit­ted that he con­tact­ed el­der­ly Amer­i­cans by phone and false­ly told them that they had won mon­ey and oth­er prizes in a sweep­stakes or lot­tery. He told vic­tims that they need­ed to send mon­ey to pay fees and tax­es on their win­nings. Stew­art re­peat­ed­ly con­tact­ed vic­tims for as long as they could be per­suad­ed to send ad­di­tion­al mon­ey. No lot­tery ex­ist­ed and no vic­tim ever re­ceived any win­nings.

“Over­seas lot­tery schemes are un­for­tu­nate­ly a com­mon means by which for­eign crim­i­nals seek to tar­get U.S. cit­i­zens, par­tic­u­lar­ly el­der Amer­i­cans,” said Act­ing As­sis­tant At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Brett A. Shu­mate of the Jus­tice De­part­ment’s Civ­il Di­vi­sion.

“Such schemes are un­ac­cept­able, and the De­part­ment will hold ac­count­able those who par­tic­i­pate in them.”

“Steal­ing mon­ey from el­der­ly in­di­vid­u­als is a de­spi­ca­ble crime,” said US at­tor­ney De­na J. King for the West­ern Dis­trict of North Car­oli­na.

“To­day’s sen­tence sends a clear mes­sage that fraud­sters who tar­get and ex­ploit old­er adults for fi­nan­cial gain will be brought to jus­tice.”

The Jus­tice De­part­ment said that this pros­e­cu­tion is part of its ef­fort to work with fed­er­al and for­eign law en­force­ment to com­bat fraud­u­lent lot­tery schemes in Ja­maica that prey on US cit­i­zens.

The US Postal In­spec­tion Ser­vice in­ves­ti­gat­ed the case. The Jus­tice De­part­ment’s Of­fice of In­ter­na­tion­al Af­fairs worked with law en­force­ment part­ners in Ja­maica to se­cure the ar­rest and ex­tra­di­tion of Stew­art.

The Jus­tice De­part­ment has ap­pealed to peo­ple 60 years and old­er who have been a vic­tim of fi­nan­cial fraud to call the Na­tion­al El­der Fraud Hot­line, which is staffed sev­en days a week by peo­ple who speak Eng­lish, Span­ish, and oth­er lan­guages.