Xenia woman who helped romance scammers gets 2 years

A 62-year-old Xenia woman will spend two years in prison after she lied to the FBI and U.S. Postal Inspectors regarding a romance scam and a missing teenager.

Linda Matson was sentenced Thursday in U.S. District Court in St. Louis. She pleaded guilty in August to making false statements to a federal agent.

Postal inspectors found $50,000 that had fallen from a package on April 29, 2020, that was sent by Matson to a post office box used in a romance fraud scheme. They later found a second package containing $50,000 also addressed to the same post office box, according to a release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri.

Inspectors contacted Matson, who admitted she had been scammed into sending money to someone claiming to be in the U.S. Army.

“Three days after admitting she had been duped in that romance scam, Matson began inducing her relatives to send her money on behalf of her fictitious military officer,” the release stated. “In an effort to conceal her continued involvement in the romance fraud scam and to expedite the return of the seized funds, on May 18, 2020, she sent multiple text messages to a postal inspector falsely claiming that she needed the money to buy posters and T-shirts to help find her missing 18-yearold niece. Matson also sent links to news articles and Facebook stories about a missing Ohio teenager to deceive the inspector into acting quickly.”

Between June 1 and Aug. 3, 2020, relatives gave Matson $590,000 that was to be used to help the fictitious military officer obtain an imaginary portfolio containing cash and diamonds valued at $20 million. Instead of providing the funds to the U.S. Customs Service as promised, she mailed the money to post office boxes controlled by the romance scammers, according to the release.

Matson admitted she lied to FBI and postal service investigators regarding the case.

In a related case, Bonmene Sibe and Ovuoke Frank Ofikoro pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit a mail fraud and wire fraud scheme that used the same false claims about military officers to deceive women into mailing $844,070 to post office boxes in St. Louis. Sibe, 43, was sentenced in May to five years and three months in prison and Ofikoro, 43, was sentenced in June to four years and two months in prison. Both men also were ordered to repay their victims.