A former hospital administrator has pleaded guilty to impersonating his former colleague for three decades, leading to the man being thrown into a psychiatric hospital.
Matthew David Keirans, 58, stole the identity of hot dog vendor William Donald Woods in the late 1980s while the two men worked together in Albuquerque, New Mexico, according to the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa.
Keirans, who most recently resided in Hartland, Wis., pleaded guilty Monday to one count of aggravated identity theft and one count of making a false statement to a National Credit-insured institution Union Administration.
Woods eventually became homeless.
He was thrown into the Los Angeles County Jail in 2019 after walking into a bank in California and reporting to the branch manager that someone had recently incurred large debts in his name.
Woods asked to close the account in question so he would not have to pay the debt, but was unable to answer a series of security questions posed by the bank manager.
And despite presenting his valid Social Security card and identification, the bank called the police and Woods was arrested.
Between August 2016 and May 2022, Keirans obtained eight loans worth more than $200,000 from credit unions in northern Iowa using Woods’ name, date of birth and Social Security number , said the US Attorney’s Office.
Keirans also married under the name Woods in 1994 and had a child with the last name Woods, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
When police contacted Keirans in Wisconsin – where he had lived for 15 years – about Woods’ efforts to close the bank account, he told cops he had not authorized anyone in California to access his accounts and faxed the fake LAPD documents.
Woods was booked on two charges and held without bail in the county jail.
He was ultimately found incompetent to stand trial and was ordered to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital and take psychotropic medications, the U.S. attorney’s office said.
In March 2021, Woods pleaded “no contest” and was released from prison after serving his sentence.
“In total, Keirans’ victim spent 428 days in the county jail and 147 days in a psychiatric hospital as a result of Keirans’ false reports to the LAPD and LADA,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
Upon his release, Woods was also wrongly asked to use only his “real name, Matthew Keirans” in the future, according to the U.S. Attorney’s statement.
After his release, Woods attempted to trace his identity several times and Keirans made several false reports to police in Wisconsin and California to keep the man away.
Woods discovered in January 2023 that Keirans was working at the University of Iowa Hospital, where he made $140,000 a year, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. Woods contacted hospital security, who forwarded his request to the local police department.
For several months, the investigating detective foiled Kierans’ plan, including DNA evidence that revealed he had no biological connection to Woods’ father in Kentucky, the district attorney’s office said. American.
Six months after the report, the detective spoke to Keirans, who insisted Woods was “crazy” and “needs help and should be locked up.”
However, after being pressured over the DNA evidence, Keirans admitted to the scheme and providing false documents to police.
Keirans, whose sentence is pending, remains in federal custody.
He faces a mandatory minimum sentence of two years and a maximum sentence of 32 years in prison.
He also faces a fine of $1.25 million, the U.S. attorney’s office said.
New York Post
