Three Charlottesville residents accused of producing and selling more than 25,000 fake IDs to mainly college students pled guilty Wednesday morning in the U.S. District Court in Charlottesville, according to a Department of Justice press release. The three defendants — Alan McNeil Jones, 31, Kelly Erin McPhee, 31, and Mark Guerin Bernardo, 27 — each pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit identification document fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft.
Because the defendants primarily used the U.S. Postal Service to ship the IDs across the country, postal inspectors were able to identify the scheme and work with the U.S. Attorney’s Office to identify the men, according to the press release.
The three defendants admitted to conspiring to create high-quality fraudulent driver’s licenses out their shared home on Rugby Road since 2010 when the enterprise began. The men obtained more than $3 million from customers under the company name Novel Design.
“At sentencing, each defendant faces a maximum possible penalty of up to 15 years in federal prison on the conspiracy charge and a mandatory additional two-year sentence on the aggravated identify theft charge,” according to the press release.
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