10 indicted in wire-fraud case

Staff report

CLEVELAND

A federal grand jury has returned a 102-count indictment charging conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, mail fraud, bank fraud, and aggravated identity theft, naming nine Mahoning Valley residents and a Canton resident as defendants, the U.S. attorney announced Tuesday.

Those charged are Clifford J. Smith, 24, Billy St. Clair, 21, Kelvan Elkins, 23, and Jason Martin, 33, all of Youngstown; Musa Nassar, 23, and Jon Foster, 30, both of Warren; Adam Bailey, 24, of Southington; Tyme Hammond, 24, of Canfield; Kevin Moses, 23, of Columbiana; and Donte Stewart, 27, of Canton.

The indictment alleges that from June 2007 to June 2011, the defendants engaged in a conspiracy to commit wire fraud by fraudulently obtaining replacement cellular telephones from Asurion Protection Services, a cellular telephone insurance company, and also fraudulently obtained cellular telephones from Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T by placing purchase orders from those companies.

The illegally obtained cellular telephones were then sold to innocent buyers on the Internet, through the eBay auction website, with payments processed by PayPal and payable to the defendants, according to the indictment.

All of the defendants are charged with several counts of wire fraud, in addition to the charge of conspiracy.

Smith, Nassar, Stewart, Foster, Elkins and Martin are also charged with mail fraud. Smith and Stewart are also charged with aggravated identity theft.

The indictment also includes charges of bank fraud against Smith and Foster.

The FBI investigated the case.