Georgia felon sentenced in mother-son multi-state fraud scheme involving identity theft, stolen vehicles

A Georgia woman was sentenced to more than 18 years in federal prison on Friday in connection to a mother-son fraud scheme involving identity theft, stolen vehicles and a firearm. 

Quinae Shamyra Stephens, 41, of Douglasville, Georgia, was convicted by a federal jury in South Carolina for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud; identity theft; aggravated identity theft; access device fraud; interstate transportation of a stolen vehicle; and felon in possession of a firearm or ammunition.

During her trial, the court rejected Stephens’ attempts to assert a sovereign citizen defense. 

So-called sovereign citizens claim federal courts lack jurisdiction over individuals. The court acknowledged this was a “frivolous defense” that has been rejected throughout the country.

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Stephens, who had already been prohibited from possessing the firearm and ammunition due to four state felony convictions for fraud-related crimes and was on probation for two of those offenses, allegedly abandoned a stolen U-Haul van nearly half a dozen states away from where it was due to be returned before August 2021.

The woman then decided to enlist her son, Deandre Copes, 23, also of Douglasville, “on a multi-state criminal journey to Florida,” prosecutors said. With a loaded semi-automatic handgun in her waistband, Stephens traveled down the East Coast in a second stolen U-Haul van stocked with dozens of fraudulently obtained identities and the equipment necessary to steal more identities, make fake credit cards, and print bogus checks, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of South Carolina. 

She was ultimately caught in smalltown South Carolina by the Latta Police Department for suspicious behavior when she stopped near a bank. 

A search of the van revealed more than a dozen identification documents – including several with Stephens’s picture in various names; a device for re-encoding credit cards with different account information; and more than 25 debit and credit cards, most in the name of individuals other than Stephens or her son, according to prosecutors. 

Further forensics investigation by the Secret Service revealed that Stephens would download…