A Fort Worth man has been named a co-conspirator in retired FBI agent William Stone’s alleged scheme to con a local mother out of more than $700,000 by convincing her she was on “secret probation,” U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Chad E. Meacham announced today.
Joseph Eventino DeLeon, 63, was charged in a superseding indictment Tuesday with conspiracy to commit wire fraud. He is expected to make his initial appearance in federal court on Wednesday, Dec. 29.
Conspirator William Stone, 62, was first indicted in May for wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy, false impersonation of a federal officer, and engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from unlawful activity. The superseding indictment, filed on Tuesday, adds Mr. DeLeon as a defendant in the wire fraud conspiracy.
According to the superseding indictment, Mr. DeLeon allegedly conspired with Mr. Stone to convince their victim, a woman identified in court documents as C.T., that she was under “secret probation” for drug crimes in “Judge Anderson’s court in Austin, Texas.”
The pair allegedly told the victim that the fictious federal judge had appointed the two of them to “mentor” and “supervise” C.T. They required her to text them written reports of her daily activities and to compensate them for their supervisory services as well as any expenses they incurred. Over the course of several years, C.T. gave Mr. Stone more than $700,000 and Mr. DeLeon more than $50,000.
Mr. Stone and Mr. DeLeon insisted that C.T. was prohibited from disclosing her probation status to anyone, and would risk imprisonment and loss of her children if she did not comply with the terms of her probation.
In order to convince her the probation was real, the defendants allegedly persuaded C.T. that Mr. Stone had the ability to monitor her cell phone communications, stated that they had discussed C.T.’s probation with a psychiatrist, enlisted another person to impersonate the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration “Intelligence Center” in a message inquiring about C.T., and even placed spoof calls between Mr. Stone, C.T., and the fictitious Judge Anderson.
They allegedly urged her to distance herself from her family, claiming her family members wanted to take her inheritance away from her, and persuaded her to transfer her inherited assets out of a trust and into an account under her own name. At one point, they allegedly claimed Judge Anderson would discharge C.T.’s probation if C.T. agreed to marry Mr. Stone. Mr. DeLeon even carried a weapon in C.T.’s home while purportedly providing “protective services” for her.
An indictment is merely an allegation of criminal conduct, not evidence. Both Mr. DeLeon and Mr. Stone are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
If convicted, Mr. DeLeon faces up to 20 years in federal prison; Mr. Stone faces up to 178 years.
The Texas Rangers and the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Inspector General conducted the investigation with the assistance of the Fort Worth Police Department. Mr. Stone retired from the Federal Bureau of Investigation in October 2015. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Marcus Busch and Katherine Miller are prosecuting the case.
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