After three decades, identity theft grift ends with guilty plea
SCHEME SENT VICTIM TO JAIL, MENTAL HOSPITAL
The scheme began at a hotdog stand in 1988.
Over the next three decades, Matthew David Keirans would trade places with William Donald Woods, steal his identity and send Woods down a path to spend more than 400 days in jail.
On Monday, Keirans pleaded guilty to identity theft, admitting to using the false name in “every aspect of his life.” He now faces up to 32 years in federal prison.
Keirans, 58, used Woods’ identity to get insurance, a Social Security number, a birth certificate, driver’s licences, credit, a fast food job and a bank account, court records say. He allegedly even had a child whose last name is Woods.
In 2019, when the real Woods, now 55, realized someone had accumulated US$130,000 in debt under his identity, the victim went to the bank to try to close his accounts. Keirans then worked to get Woods arrested for stealing his identity, and as a result, Woods spent more than a year in jail and nearly 150 days in a mental hospital.
The case came to a head last year, when Woods found out Keirans worked at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. The health-care system notified police, and a detective “unravelled” the scheme, using DNA evidence to prove Keirans was not who he said he was, according to a Justice Department news release.
Keirans initially told the detective his victim was “crazy” and needed to be “locked up” before he confessed to the identity theft and to providing fraudulent documents to aid in Woods’ arrest.
Keirans’ attorney did not respond to a request for comment Friday; nor did Woods.
In 1990, two years after they met at a hotdog stand, Keirans obtained a fraudulent Colorado ID with Woods’ name and date of birth, court documents show.
The grift continued for years, Keirans living as Woods in state after state, and Woods trying to live as himself.
Keirans racked up tens of thousands of dollars in debt under Woods’ name. In August 2019, Woods, homeless in Los Angeles, went to the bank to tell the national chain — unnamed in the suit — that someone was using his Social Security number to accumulate $130,000 in debt under his identity. He wanted to close his account, and gave the assistant branch manager his Social Security card.
The employee asked Woods about the location and date he opened the accounts. Woods couldn’t answer.
But Keirans could.
Police arrested Woods and accused him of unlawfully using personal information. They also asked Keirans why he’d used different middle names on some documents.
The district attorney in Los Angeles charged Woods with two felonies, accusing him of identity theft and false impersonation. He faced three years of imprisonment.
During the trial, as the real Woods continued to insist he was himself, his attorney told the court she doubted his mental competence to stand trial. Months later, in February 2020, a California judge ordered Woods to a mental hospital, finding he was not mentally competent to stand trial.
During the nearly two years Woods was in jail and then in a mental hospital, Keirans requested updates “numerous times.”
“I am the person who had their ID compromised,” Keirans wrote in an email to an assistant district attorney.
In March 2021, Woods was convicted, pleading no contest in exchange for his release. In May of that year, the court ordered Woods to only use his “true name, Matthew Keirans.”
But the saga was not yet over.
Months later, Woods contacted the police department in Hartland, Wis., where Keirans was living. When Keirans found out, he wrote to a Los Angeles detective that he was “concerned” the person who “was convicted of stealing my ID and then attempting to alter my bank accounts” knew where he lived.
Hartland police didn’t investigate.
Woods didn’t give up. He filed a second identity-theft complaint in September 2022. Keirans responded by calling Woods “Matthew Keirans” and saying his identity was still under threat.
The charade unravelled in 2023, after Woods contacted Keirans’ employer.
In January of that year, Woods told the Iowa hospital system for which Keirans worked remotely that its employee had stolen his identity. Keirans responded by telling the assistant district attorney in Los Angeles that his employer had begun an internal investigation. A detective in Iowa was on the case.
Keirans doubled down on his story.
Keirans told the detective, court documents said, that he doubted the officer would be able to get to the bottom of the issue since no one else had, and that he was fine “with just dealing with it.”
The detective then matched Woods’ DNA with his father’s in Kentucky. Weeks later, he interviewed Keirans, who insisted Woods should be “locked up.”
The Iowa detective then asked Keirans what his father’s name was, and he responded by giving the name of his own father, not Woods’. The investigator then revealed the DNA evidence.
“My life is over,” Keirans responded.
His scheme was, anyway.
Keirans admitted to the scam and revealed that he used Ancestry.com to get Woods’ birth certificate. He remains in custody pending sentencing. He faces at least two years of imprisonment and a $1.25 million fine.
“Everything is gone,” Keirans told the detective, after three decades of using another man’s name.