The
U.S. Justice Department released the below link:
FRESNO,
Calif. — On Jan. 28, a federal grand jury in Fresno indicted Selma couple
Marquis Asaad Hooper, 30, and Natasha Renee Chalk, 37, charging them with
conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft,
U.S. Attorney McGregor W. Scott announced.
According
to court documents, Hooper was stationed in Japan as a chief petty officer with
the Navy’s Seventh Fleet until October 2018. His wife, Chalk, was a naval
reservist stationed at Naval Air Station Lemoore in California. Hooper separated
from the Navy in October 2018. Shortly before Hooper’s separation was final,
Hooper and Chalk fraudulently obtained access to a database containing millions
of people’s personal information. The company that operates the database only
grants access to legitimate businesses and government agencies and only for
business or government purposes, such as police departments attempting to
locate suspects or banks confirming the information in account applications.
In
late August 2018, Hooper contacted the company, falsely claiming that the
Seventh Fleet needed access to the database to run background checks on Navy
personnel. Based on that information, the company approved the account. Hooper
signed the company’s subscriber agreement, purporting to act on behalf of his
fleet. In reality, Hooper was not acting on behalf of his fleet, and Hooper did
not access the database for a legitimate government purpose. Instead, he added
Chalk, who was not a member of his fleet, and other individuals to the database
account. Over the next approximately two and a half months, Hooper and Chalk
searched for tens of thousands of individuals on the database and sold the
information they obtained on those individuals to third parties in exchange for
bitcoin. The third parties used the information to commit identity theft.
For
instance, in November 2018, a man in Gilbert, Arizona, attempted to withdraw
money from another person’s bank account using a fake driver’s license created
with information Hooper had retrieved from the database. The company shut down
Hooper’s and Chalk’s database account in December 2018. Three months later,
they tried again to get access to the database through one of Hooper’s Navy
contacts stationed on the U.S.S. George Washington, docked in Newport News,
Virginia. Hooper had the contact falsely state that another Navy member, L.B.,
was the contact’s supply officer. Hooper and Chalk then conspired to send the
contact a subscriber agreement for the database, a fake driver’s license for
L.B., and a fake letter from the contact’s commanding officer, all containing
forged signatures.
This
case is the product of an investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative
Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Homeland Security
investigations. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Vincente A. Tennerelli and Joseph D.
Barton are prosecuting the case.
If
convicted, Hooper and Chalk face a maximum statutory penalty of 20 years in
prison on the conspiracy and wire fraud charges and a mandatory two-years in
prison, consecutive to any other sentence, on the aggravated identity theft
charges. Any sentence, however, would be determined at the discretion of the
court after consideration of any applicable statutory factors and the Federal
Sentencing Guidelines, which take into account a number of variables. The
charges are only allegations; the defendants are presumed innocent until and
unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
