BOSTON, July 21, 2017— A Dorchester man was ordered held on high bail at his arraignment today on charges including money laundering and possession of child pornography, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said.
JOHN WILSON (D.O.B. 12/15/67) of Dorchester was arraigned in Suffolk Superior Court today on a 34-count indictment charging:
- Ten counts of larceny over $250 by single scheme,
- Eight counts of receiving stolen property over $250,
- Seven counts of attempting to commit a crime (to wit: receiving stolen property over $250),
- Three counts of money laundering,
- Three counts of conspiracy to receive stolen property over $250,
- Two counts of uttering, and
- One count of possession of child pornography.
At the request of Assistant District Attorney George Barker of the DA’s Special Prosecutions Unit, Clerk Magistrate Ed Curley imposed bail of $50,000. In the event he posts that amount, Wilson must surrender his passport and not apply for a new passport, refrain from opening any new bank accounts, wear a GPS monitoring device, have no contact with children under age 18; and not loiter within 300 feet of a school, day care facility, playground, or other location where children congregate.
Barker told the court that Wilson benefitted from a scheme in which dozens of bank accounts were compromised during August 2015. In the course of that scheme, the bank made payments from those compromised accounts to Wilson totaling $27,960. Fraudulent wire transfers totaling $78,967 were also attempted but denied.
In a separate scheme undertaken in 2016, accounts on 16 separate business credit cards issued through a different bank were also compromised and Wilson was added as an authorized user on them. As a result, Wilson fraudulently obtained credit cards on each of the 16 accounts and used 10 of the cards to make a series of cash advances totaling $303,700 – most of which was wired to individuals in Turkey and Ghana.
Wilson additionally received a total of $72,750 in tax refunds issued by the Internal Revenue Service in March and April of 2015 as the result of fraudulently filed returns, prosecutors said, and further received a falsified check for $1,000 check drawn on the account of a fire department in Athol, Idaho.
During the course of the investigation into Wilson’s alleged role in the schemes, a search warrant was executed on his phone. The device was found to contain a video depicting explicit sexual images of children, prosecutors said.
Wilson was represented by Kristen Wheeler. He returns to court Sept. 26.
–30–
All defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
