Woman who stole baby’s identity gets 6 years, $1.5M fine
COLUMBUS — A former Columbus bakery owner will have to pay more than $1.5 million in restitution and spend six years in prison for her extensive fraud, includ- ing stealing the identity of a dead baby and obtain- ing federal pandemic-relief loans for defunct or nonex- istent businesses.
Ava Misseldine, 50, for- merly of Columbus, was sentenced Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Columbus for her guilty plea in Octo- ber to 16 counts of wire and passport fraud.
Misseldine stole the identity of a baby who died in 1979 and is buried in a Columbus cemetery, according to court records. In 2003, she applied for an Ohio ID and later a Social Security card and driver’s license using the stolen identity.
Misseldine was employed using the false identity as a flight attendant for Jetselect Aviation, a Columbus-based private jet charter company that was acquired by Jet Edge in 2020, and obtained a passport in 2007 using the assumed identity.
Over the next 13 years, Misseldine obtained iden- tity documents using both her real and fake names, according to court records.
Misseldine also obtained about $1.5 million in loans in 2020 through the Paycheck
Protection Program — a federal program meant to help small businesses through the COVID pandemic — for at least 10 bakeries, restaurants and catering companies in Ohio that have not operated for years or never existed. This includes her former bakeries Sugar Inc. Cupcakes & Tea Salon in Dublin and the Koko Tea Salon & Bakery operations in New Albany and at Easton Town Center in Columbus.
Federal prosecutors say Misseldine used some of the fraudulently obtained money to purchase a home for $647,500 adjacent to Zion National Park in Utah and a home for $327,500 in Michigan.
Misseldine’s defense attorney, Alan John Pfeuffer, told The Dispatch she has already paid back more than $300,000 and is working with the government to sell her Utah home, which should get her close to repaying the $1.5 million she owes.
“Ava is very remorseful for her actions,” Pfeuffer said. “She looks forward to receiving needed counseling while in (prison).”
Federal investigators began looking into Misseldine last year when she tried to renew a fraudulent passport, according to the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio Kenneth Parker’s office. Authorities arrested Misseldine in Utah in June 2022.
DETROIT — Sixto Rodriguez, who lived in obscurity as his music career flamed out early in the U.S. only to find success in South Africa and a stardom he was unaware of, died Tuesday in Detroit. He was 81.
Rodriguez’s legacy would take off back home after the singer and songwriter became the subject of the Oscar-winning documentary “Searching for Sugar Man.”
His death was announced on the Sugarman.org web- site and confirmed Wednes- day by his granddaughter, Amanda Kennedy.
He died following a short illness, according to his wife, Konny Rodriguez, 72.
A 2013 Associated Press story referred to Rodri- guez as “the greatest protest singer and songwriter that most people never heard of.”
His albums flopped in the United States in the 1970s, but — unknown to him — he later became a star in South Africa where his songs pro- testing the Vietnam War, racial inequality, abuse of women and social mores inspired white liberals hor- rified by the country’s bru- tal racial segregation system of apartheid.
Swedish filmmaker Malik Bendjelloul’s documentary “Searching for Sugar Man” presented Rodriguez to a much larger audience. The film tells of two South Africans’ mission to seek out the fate of their musical hero. It won the Academy Award for best documentary in 2013.
Rodriguez was “more pop- ular than Elvis” in South
Africa, Stephen “Sugar” Segerman said in 2013. The Cape Town record store own- er’s nickname comes from the Rodriguez song “Sugar Man.”
As his popularity in South Africa grew, Rodriguez lived in Detroit. But his fans in South Africa believed he also was famous in the United States. They heard stories that the musician had died dramatically: He’d shot himself in the head onstage in Moscow; He’d set himself aflame and burned to death before an audience some- place else; He’d died of a drug overdose, was in a men- tal institution, was incar- cerated for murdering his girlfriend.
In 1996, Segerman and journalist Carl Bar- tholomew-strydom set out to learn the truth. Their efforts led them to Detroit, where they found Rodriguez work- ing on construction sites.
“It’s rock-and-roll history now. Who would-a thought?” Rodriguez told The Asso- ciated Press a decade ago.
Rodriguez said he just “went back to work” after his music career fizzled, rais- ing a family that includes three daughters and launching several unsuccessful cam- paigns for public office. He made a living through man- ual labor in Detroit.
Still, he never stopped playing his music.
“I felt I was ready for the world, but the world wasn’t ready for me,” Rodriguez said. “I feel we all have a mission — we have obliga- tions. Those turns on the journey, different twists — life is not linear.”
Konny Rodriguez said the couple met in 1972 while both were students at Wayne State University in Detroit and married in the early 1980s. Although still married at the time of his death, the couple had been separated for a number of years, she said Wednesday while shuffling through some of Sixto Rodriguez’s memorabilia.
“He loved college. He was born to be taught, to teach himself,” Konny Rodriguez said. “The music was more to bring people together. He would play anywhere, anytime. That’s where I noticed him. He was walking down Cass Avenue with a guitar and a black bag. He was a really eccentric guy.”
The two albums she said he recorded n 1969 and 1971 “didn’t do well.”
“I’m sure that was still in his head,” Konny Rodriguez added. “Then in 1979, I picked up the phone and it was a guy with an Australian accent who said ‘he must come to Australia because he’s very famous here.’ ”
She said they toured Australia in 1979 and 1981 and later learned about the impact of his music in South Africa.
“Apartheid was going on,” she said. “Frank Sinatra had a full-page ad, ‘Do not go to South Africa.’ We didn’t.”
After the end of apartheid, Sixto Rodriguez did travel to South Africa and perform in front of his fans there, she said.
“He did so well in South Africa. It was insane,” Konny Rodriguez said.
Sixto Rodriguez later pursued royalties he did not receive from his music being used and played in South Africa.
Some of Rodriguez’s songs were banned by the apartheid regime and many bootlegged copies were made on tapes and later CDS.