A HOT dog seller’s colleague stole his identity for 35 years, racked up $200,000 in debts and even had a child using his name.
William Woods, 55, was jailed and even sectioned as he led a lonely crusade to prove he was himself.
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Last week, the man behind the scam, Matthew David Keirans, pleaded guilty to aggravated identity theft after stealing Wood’s identity back in the late 80s.
Court documents revealed that for three-and-a-half decades, Keirans, 58, stole almost every aspect of Woods’ life.
He now faces up to 32 years in prison.
While Keirans got a job as a hospital executive and racked up tens of thousands in debts in his ex-workmates name, Woods ended up homeless.
In 2019, Woods was even tragically arrested and charged with identity theft and unauthorised use of personal information. He was detained and later sectioned.
He is now considering filing a lawsuit for the time he spent in prison for a crime he did not commit, the Los Angeles Times reported.
“They should pay for every day I had to stay there,” he told the outlet. “It isn’t right to be putting me in jail for nothing.”
THE THEFT
The pair had worked together briefly at a hot dog stand in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1988.
Woods said that they never interacted until his wallet went missing one day.
He questioned Keirans who eventually handed the wallet back with his social security card and birth certificate still inside.
“I didn’t think anything of it. I didn’t think he was actually going to do anything,” Woods said.
Court files revealed that there is no record of Keirans using his real name after that moment.
Instead, he got hold of a social security number, insurance, driver’s licences, loans, credit and employment all using Woods’ identity – even paying taxes under his name.
In 1990, Keirans got a Colorado ID, a job and a new bank account in his ex-colleague’s name.
He then bought a $600 car using checks that bounced – leading to an arrest warrant being issued for Woods.
But the sham continued. In 1994, he got married and had a child who was even registered with Woods as a last name.
In 2012, prosecutors claimed that Keirans got hold of Woods’ birth certificate from Kentucky using information he found on Ancestry.com.
As Woods he got a job as an IT worker at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics – providing them with falsified documents.
He worked remotely from Wisconsin and earned $700,000 (£560k) over 10 years.
Between 2016-2022, he took out eight loans in Woods’ name that totalled more than $200,000 (£160k), the US Attorney’s office said.
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THE REAL WOODS
As a man was making thousands using his name, the real William Woods was struggling.
After flogging jewellery he found on the street in LA, he ended up homeless, according to prosecutors.
Then in 2019, Woods discovered that someone was using his credit and had accumulated a large sum of debt.
He went to a bank to try to close the account but failed his security questions.
Keirans number was registered to the account and he was rung instead and correctly answered the questions.
Despite Woods providing identification, the bank called the police who arrested Woods and then charged him with identity theft.
In a shocking turn of events, they even booked him under the name of his scammer – Matthew Keirans.
He kept telling the court “I am not Keirans” and was found not fit to stand trial and shipped off to a mental asylum.
In March 2021, he pleaded “no contest” – accepting the conviction but did not admit guilt – and was released.
He was ordered to stop using his real name of William Woods.
“In total, Keirans’ victim spent 428 days in county jail and 147 days in the mental hospital as a result of Keirans’ false reports,” the US Attorney’s office said.
THE DNA TEST
Following his release, Woods desperately tried to regain his identity and filed multiple reports against Keirans who, in turn, did the same using false documents.
In January 2023, Woods tracked Keirans down and alerted his local police department who steadily unravelled his decades-long scheme.
Through DNA evidence, they found that the scammer had no biological connection to Woods’ father.
The gig was up and Keirans finally admitted to it all, reportedly telling a police officer “my life is over” and “everything is gone”.
On April 1, he pleaded guilty in federal court.
When asked what he would do next, Woods said: “I guess I have to regain all my stuff back and just rebuild what I was.”
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