Richmond, VA – Inmate Accused Of Defrauding Holocaust Victims While In Prison

Richmond, VA – A Federal Grand Jury in Richmond has indicted an inmate at the federal prison in Petersburg on charges of coordinating an ongoing identity theft scheme from the prison.

John Kenneth Leighnor, Jr., 49, is charged with three counts of mail fraud and eight counts of aggravated identity theft.

According to court records, Leighnor identified many of his intended victims by reviewing obituaries and dormant Swiss bank account lists for Holocaust victims. For the Holocaust victims, Leighnor obtained dormant Swiss bank account lists which detailed the “names of owners and Power of Attorney Holders of Swiss bank accounts that were open or opened between 1933 and 1945 and whose owners were probably or possibly victims of Nazi persecution . . .”

Prosecutors say Leighnor then drafted correspondence to be mailed to various governmental agencies and other organizations in order to obtain official documentation for the targeted victims. In connection with each mailing, the indictment alleges that Leighnor either claimed that he was the targeted victim or that he was a lawyer, advocate, or other designated representative for the targeted victim. He requested the victim’s personal documentation, such as birth certificates, family information, undergraduate transcripts, enrollment applications, and death certificates. The defendant’s fraudulent letters requested that all return correspondence be sent to his attention at various addresses, including: “Dept. 14375-077, P.O. Box 1000, Petersburg, Virginia 23804,” while concealing the fact that the documents were actually being delivered to the Petersburg Federal Correction Institute.

The indictment alleges that once receiving the victim’s information, Leighnor planned to to do two things, use the information to obtain passports, driver’s licenses, birth certificates and European Union Identification Cards. Prosecutors believe Leighnor also planned to use the Holocaust victims’ identifying information to obtain family geneology information from the German government for use in identifying the descendants of Holocaust victims. With that information, Leighnor falsely represented himself as a descendant and planned to file claims with the Claims Resolution Tribunal, the entity charged with handling claims on Swiss Bank accounts believed to be abandoned by victims of Nazi persecution.

If convicted on all the charges, Leighnor could be sentenced to 76 years in prison and fined $2.75 million.