A Georgia man who bilked thousands of dollars from a Yakima County woman by posing as a federal marshal has been sentenced to prison.
Charmorro Vijay Strothers, 31, of Auburn, Georgia, was sentenced Tuesday to 30 months in federal prison. He had pleaded guilty in May to wire fraud in the case where he convinced a woman in Yakima to pay him bail money for an arrest warrant that did not exist.
Strothers was originally charged in U.S. District Court with wire fraud and impersonating a federal officer in connection with a scam involving fake arrest warrants.
According to court documents, someone called the woman in August 2023 and told her that there was a warrant out for her arrest, and that she could avoid it by going to a local bail bond company and paying $14,000.
Meanwhile, Strothers had flown in from Georgia, rented a car in Seattle and drove to Yakima, where he met with the woman in the parking lot of the Yakima County jail and collected the money, giving her a handwritten receipt that listed the bond service’s name, according to court documents.
The next day, a caller told the woman that she still had a warrant for her arrest, and she needed to pay an additional $25,000 bail. She again met with Strothers to deliver the money, according to the indictment. When the woman asked Strothers for his badge number or other identification, he said he could not provide it because he was a U.S. Marshal.
Tacoma case
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said another woman got a call purportedly from the Puyallup police telling her she failed to appear in court as an expert witness and a warrant had been issued for her arrest.
The woman thought it might be a scam, but she said with the information the caller had and because she feared for her reputation, she agreed to pay $45,000 to Strothers, who met her in the parking lot of a Tacoma bail bond company and gave her a hand-written receipt.
Law enforcement officers found and arrested Strothers inside Sea-Tac airport, where they found a receipt booklet with a copy of the receipt issued to one of the victims and $59,000 cash, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Sentencing
Strothers was also charged in Pierce County, but prosecutors there agreed to dismiss their case in return for Strothers’ plea in federal court, with the condition that it would be refiled if Strothers breached the terms of his plea agreement before sentencing.
Prosecutors asked for a 30-month sentence, which was at the upper end of the sentencing guidelines. Defense attorney Paul Shelton argued for a 15-month sentence, which would have amounted to time served.
While Strothers had committed “some very serious offenses” in the past, Shelton said he also managed to be a law-abiding citizen for eight years and earned his GED. While he was earning between $2,800 and $3,600 a month as a delivery truck driver, Strothers said he participated in the scam because it was a “good opportunity to get a jump start in life.”
As a convicted felon, Strothers will lose some rights and have to deal with the stigma that comes with being a felon, although in a footnote Shelton said that stigma has lost some meaning in recent years. “After all, felons can be president,” Shelton wrote.
Strothers’ family, friends and coworkers also wrote letters to Judge Stanley Bastian asking for mercy, describing Strothers as a man with “a strong moral compass” who made a mistake.
Bastian followed the government’s recommended sentence, awarding credit for time served.
