St. Stephen man gets 10 years in counterfeit check scheme

A St. Stephen man was sentenced to more than 10 years in federal prison for identity theft and conspiracy to make and pass counterfeit checks.

Stanley Lessington, 32, was sentenced in federal court in Charleston, the U.S. Attorney's Office said Wednesday.

Senior U.S. District Judge Sol Blatt, Jr., sentenced Lessington to 121 months imprisonment, to be followed by three years of supervised release.

Trial evidence showed that from 2003 through 2006, Lessington was the leader of a conspiracy to commit identity theft, and to make and pass counterfeit business checks using stolen identification information. He paid others for stolen Social Security cards and birth certificates, using them to obtain fraudulent identification cards, prosecutors said.

Lessington then manufactured counterfeit payroll checks and recruited co-conspirators to cash the counterfeit checks using the fraudulent identification cards. More than ten businesses in the lowcountry were victims of Lessington's fraud, with the amount of loss exceeding $170,000, prosecutors said.

The case was investigated the United States Secret Service, the Berkeley County Sheriff's Office and the Moncks Corner Police Department.