ATLANTA — A convicted Georgia felon is facing new charges after being accused of targeting professional athletes in a phishing scam as well as a fraud and sex trafficking scheme.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Kwamaine Jerell Ford, previously convicted in 2019 in federal court, “perpetrated similar phishing attacks” and spent almost $325,000 using stolen financial information.
U.S. Department of Justice officials said the new indictment against Ford is the result of actions Ford took while in custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
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“While serving time for stealing credit card numbers from athletes and celebrities to fund his lifestyle, Ford allegedly engaged in the same conduct again,” U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg said in a statement. “Disturbingly, the indictment alleges that Ford went even further and used a fraudulent online persona to traffic a young woman and coerce her to produce hidden camera videos of commercial sex acts with unknowing individuals.”
Hertzberg said Ford is accused of obtaining login credentials for Apple accounts that belonged to NBA and NFL players by posing as an adult film star online and offering to send the athletes sexually explicit videos.
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At the same time, the Justice Department said Ford is accused of spoofing legitimate Apple accounts and posing as an Apple customer support representative to gain his alleged victims’ usernames, passwords and other security codes to access the videos his adult film star persona was supposed to send to the athletes.
He then used the information to “pay for thousands of dollars in personal spending.”
Justice officials said Ford is also accused of again posing at the adult film star he impersonated online to coerce a woman to engage in commercial sex acts with professional athletes based on false promises of advancing the woman’s modeling career.
“Kwamaine Ford clearly did not learn from his prior conviction for a similar scheme. This time, he allegedly escalated his criminal activity—stealing identities and money while also moving into coercion and sex trafficking,” FBI Georgia Acting Special Agent in Charge Peter Ellis said.
Ford is accused of advertising the woman to athletes and coordinating her travel to them while negotiating payments from the athletes for purchasing sex with her.
USDOJ said Ford also used false personas to get financial cuts from the commercial sex acts, “many of which Ford allegedly coerced his victim into filming without the athletes’ knowledge or consent.”
Ford appeared in federal court on Friday and pled not guilty to the following charges:
- 9 counts of wire fraud
- 7 counts of computer fraud
- 1 count of access device fraud
- 4 counts of aggravated identity theft
- 1 count of sex trafficking
A federal judge ordered Ford held without bail, pending trial.
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