Join me to hear a story about Jovaughn Turner’s pandemic fraud, check fraud, and lots of gunplay that ends in a dead gang member on his front step. This is eCrimeBytes.com Season 2 Episode 19 – Pandemic Fraud And Guns With Jovaughn E. Turner – Act 1: Justifiable Homicide.
Sources:
- https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/pr/convicted-felon-sentenced-pandemic-fraud-and-firearm-offenses
- https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67980542/united-states-v-turner/
Transcript:
00:00:10:00 – 00:00:37:57
Keith
Hey, welcome, you crazy bastards. This is eCrimeBytes where I research the court paperwork and roast the criminals so you don’t have to. This week, it’s season two, Episode 19. This is Pandemic Fraud and Guns with Jovaughn E Turner. Okay, so when this crime happened in 2020, Jovaughn was 18, so he was pretty young. The crimes that he committed, the main one that I gonna talk to you about is wire fraud.
00:00:37:57 – 00:01:03:35
Keith
And there’s a couple different wire frauds under that umbrella. But there’s another important one. Gun possession by a disqualifying individual. Well, that’ll make sense more once I get into this story. So hold on to that one. The victims here, there are several businesses that lost their checks in the mail. Basically, they were stolen. That’s a subset of victims there.
00:01:03:39 – 00:01:22:46
Keith
And then there’s a dead gang member that’ll make sense later on. Hint, hint. It has something to do with the guns. Technology, in this case, we have social media. It doesn’t really matter what social media it is. It’s just a standard social media post. And in that post, there’s some evidence that we’re going to take a look at.
00:01:22:51 – 00:01:51:12
Keith
We’re also going to talk about credit cards, debit cards and checks. So you’re very standard forms of payment. That’s all we’re going to be talking about here. So why did I choose this case? What made this case different than all the other cases? And why did I pick this one? Well, a lot of times we say electronic crime is a quote unquote gentleman’s crime and that, you know, people don’t get hurt and there’s not a you know, no one gets hurt or killed.
00:01:51:17 – 00:02:11:05
Keith
This case completely different. There’s guns involved and someone dies. And that’s the twist here. And I got to admit, when I started researching this, I didn’t even know about the death until about, I guess about halfway through. And then I ran into it and I was like, holy shit. So stick around. This takes a twist that you probably won’t see coming.
00:02:11:10 – 00:02:23:07
Keith
So with that, let’s go ahead and get started on this week’s episode. And we’re going to start with Act One, which is called Justifiable Homicide. You’ll find out why in a minute.
00:02:23:07 – 00:02:31:01
Keith
So in order for you to get an appreciation of the story, I got to give you a little bit of background on Jovaughn Turner. Okay. So he didn’t have an easy childhood.
00:02:31:01 – 00:02:56:46
Keith
He was born into poverty. His dad was an alcoholic. His dad would beat on him. And when his dad wasn’t beating on him, his dad would beat on his mother. So eventually mom left dad and moved out. And then mom and Jovaughn would move to different places. So Turner would be in one school for a little while and then be in another school for a little while.
00:02:56:46 – 00:03:16:54
Keith
And that’s really hard on a kid to make new friends and learn new systems and all that kind of stuff along the lines, too. He learned to steal as a way to provide for his family. This happened when he was young, and his crime happened when he was 18. So this happened even earlier than that when he was growing up.
00:03:16:54 – 00:03:25:01
Keith
You also witnessed a lot of drug dealing and shootings. And even though he saw that, he still continued on with the crimes to feed himself and his family.
00:03:25:01 – 00:03:37:46
Keith
Okay. So if we fast forward to May 24th of 2020, if you can put yourself in that mindset of that era for a second, COVID just hit. Most of the population is on lockdown.
00:03:37:46 – 00:03:39:31
Keith
You can’t leave your house. Okay?
00:03:39:31 – 00:04:06:54
Keith
A lot of people lost their jobs or had severely reduced hours, so they weren’t making money. It was a really tough time. Now, during this time, Turner filed an application for pandemic unemployment with the Virginia Employment Commission. Now, in this claim, he said he lost his job and or was working reduced hours because of the pandemic.
00:04:06:59 – 00:04:28:47
Keith
If you dig a little deeper, he was actually working for Prime Now, which is an Amazon company. And what they do is they deliver groceries. And this was pretty new when the pandemic first started. I can remember using it when the pandemic first started, and it was great. So these type of jobs, they were exempt from being locked down at home.
00:04:28:47 – 00:04:56:01
Keith
They were actually able to work. And because everybody else was on lockdown, these type of jobs were in peak demand. So when he’s saying he was laid off because of COVID, that’s not exactly true. Furthermore, he didn’t even work there that much total. His total wages total together, $2,500. Okay. So it’s not like he worked there ten years and then lost his job because of pandemic.
00:04:56:01 – 00:05:01:46
Keith
It looked like it was kind of a part time job maybe. And then they separated.
00:05:01:46 – 00:05:23:26
Keith
And so a few weeks later, in June, June 2nd of 2020, there was another unemployment claim. This time again, it’s a Virginia employment commission, but this time he’s claiming that he was laid off from his job at Wendy’s. Jesus Christ. If you join me on my last episode, you learned all about how my mother thought or thinks.
00:05:23:26 – 00:05:50:04
Keith
Still thinks Wendy’s square hamburgers give you gastric distress. Well, hopefully, hopefully that’s not the reason why Turner was laid off from Wendy’s. And I’ll tell you, actually, that’s that’s not the reason why. He wasn’t laid off. He voluntarily left in October of 2019. And if you do a little math there you go. October 2019 COVID hasn’t hit yet.
00:05:50:09 – 00:06:16:08
Keith
Correct. So A COVID hasn’t hit yet. And B, he left of his own accord. He left voluntarily. He wasn’t laid off because of COVID, because it was way before COVID. Crazy, right? Well, I don’t know if Virginia just didn’t check this or what, but they paid him on insurance claims and he made about $21,000 in insurance claims, unemployment insurance claims.
00:06:16:08 – 00:06:41:16
Keith
And I could stop there and say, hey, that was you know, there is some fraud. Case done, right? We’re done. Nope. Trust me, it gets worse. July 2020 Turner was arrested and convicted, and you might ask me of what? Well, he maliciously shot into a vehicle, and you might think that’s horrible. Yeah, there was somebody inside the vehicle.
00:06:41:21 – 00:07:02:33
Keith
So he put somebody’s life in danger. Now, I tried to figure out what this situation was about. If it was like him being aggressive or if it was self-defense or what it was. But there wasn’t much information. I just found out that he maliciously shot at a vehicle that had a person in it. He was arrested and convicted.
00:07:02:39 – 00:07:06:32
Keith
Now, why I’m telling you this is one reason there’s an importance here.
00:07:06:32 – 00:07:29:24
Keith
He’s going to be on supervised probation from 2020 through 2023. And when you’re on supervised probation, you cannot be around guns. You cannot have guns. There can be no gunplay involved. Okay. Keep this in mind for the next three years. So basically, this whole everything I’m going to give to you from now on, he’s not supposed to be around guns.
00:07:29:24 – 00:07:32:35
Keith
And spoiler alert, he’s going be around guns all the time. Okay,
00:07:32:35 – 00:07:52:12
Keith
So now, September 26, 2020, there’s a search warrant at Turner’s house in Hampton, Virginia, and he may ask yourself why. Well, there was a fucking dead body on his front porch. And I say house and I. I got to set the stage for you. It looks like an apartment.
00:07:52:12 – 00:08:11:09
Keith
It looks like an apartment complex. So imagine a hallway with other apartments attached. It’s not like a front porch out on farmland or anything like that. So when you have a dead body in the front porch, people are going to fucking notice because it’s an apartment complex. So police are there because of this dead body.
00:08:11:09 – 00:08:12:21
Keith
Why is there a dead body?
00:08:12:21 – 00:08:39:03
Keith
Well, this apartment, this apartment inside this complex has been a target of robberies a lot lately. It’s a sounded like multiple times. People would come to rob it, and it’s. And Turner lived there, and it’s sounded like maybe just Turner he got fed up with it and had a gun one time. And this particular time when someone came to rob them and this person was a gang member, by the way, came to rob them.
00:08:39:08 – 00:09:00:50
Keith
Turner shot and killed him. That’s why there’s a dead body on his front porch. Now, a little bit of a tangent here. So police do an investigation, obviously, because there’s a dead fucking body. And they said, hey, this guy came to rob you. This is a justifiable homicide committed in self-defense. We’re not going to file any charges on you. Which on paper…
00:09:00:54 – 00:09:05:13
Keith
On paper sounds right. It sounds right. I got to admit it sounds right,
00:09:05:13 – 00:09:23:43
Keith
but I’m going to question this at the very, very end of this episode. So stick around because I have a few thoughts on this. I’m going to put this on pause for a second. So as you can imagine, there is a dead body. Police are going to get a search warrant because they go, Hey, Turner, you’re not supposed to be around guns because you’re on probation.
00:09:23:43 – 00:09:49:40
Keith
And remember, I just told you that part. And so they have a search warrant for his house and they find two firearms there and at least one that’s a illegally possessed is a Glock 23 by Turner, who’s not supposed to be possessing any guns. Now, also, there’s a ring camera at the door of where the shooting happened. So I’m going to pop a picture on your screen right now.
00:09:49:40 – 00:10:09:13
Keith
And video viewers, you get to see it. I apologize. I’m going to describe it and you’re going to say why? Well, we have audio only viewers that can’t see this. So I want to give them a little bit of a situational awareness of what we’re talking about. So in this ring camera picture, you can see it looks like you’re looking over the shoulder of a person.
00:10:09:13 – 00:10:27:11
Keith
You can kind of see their hair hanging down a little bit. You can’t even tell if this person’s man or female is just a person. And that’s on the left side of the photo. On the right side of the photo, there is a door across the hall. And that’s why I’m saying this looks like a definite apartment complex.
00:10:27:11 – 00:10:51:40
Keith
Even if it’s a house, there’s people living connected to your house. In the middle of this photo is a relatively young looking person wearing a white T-shirt, blue jeans, and he’s got a gun down by his hip. It’s very evident that it’s down by his hip. It looks like he’s kind of walking up aggressively. It’s apparent that it’s a gun and is not vagaue by
00:10:51:40 – 00:11:06:12
Keith
any means that he’s carrying something else and he has a fucking ski mask. And so you only see his eyes and upper part of his nose. And from this photograph, it looks like he might have even some, like normal glasses on. Not even sunglasses, but normal glasses on.
00:11:06:12 – 00:11:09:48
Keith
And he’s walking up to the door. So that’s picture number one.
00:11:09:48 – 00:11:32:47
Keith
I’m going to flip over to picture number two, which comes from a police officer’s body camera. This is the aftermath. He was shot by Turner. You see him laying in the doorway. You see a police officer kind of bending down over somebody who has a white t shirt on and blue jeans, can’t really see much else. It kind of looks like they’re maybe checking his vitals.
00:11:32:52 – 00:11:57:50
Keith
There’s another individual kind of next to the police officer maybe talking to them. And then you can even see the ring camera in the left hand side there that we got the first picture from. So as you can imagine, as you can imagine, there’s an investigation cause there’s a dead body. Right. So the search warrant at Turner’s house produced a lot of a lot of things, a lot of information, a lot of things.
00:11:57:55 – 00:12:23:21
Keith
First, it produced a laptop. Not so weird. If you search my house, you’re going to find several laptops. But that’s that’s where we’re similar and here’s where it gets different. They found $28,000 in currency. So in cash, they also found five five of these magnetic ink character recognition printers. And I didn’t know what these were, so I had to do a little research on them.
00:12:23:21 – 00:12:47:36
Keith
And it’s a type of printer that financial institutions use to print the bottoms of those checks, those special raised, bumpy things that, you know, humans aren’t meant to understand. These are specialized printers. An 18 year old shouldn’t have this in his apartment, is what I’m saying. He has five. He also has check stock paper. He has money counting machine.
00:12:47:37 – 00:13:09:58
Keith
I’ve never had so much money where I needed the money counting machine, but Turner does. He has a magnetic card reader, writer and coder, which means you can create, like, credit cards with that machinery. He has 11 counterfeit checks. These are from business bank accounts, from businesses in the area that had their mail stolen and their checks stolen.
00:13:09:58 – 00:13:12:58
Keith
51 credit and debit cards.
00:13:12:58 – 00:13:30:06
Keith
And then later on, investigators did more of an investigation and they were trying to figure out what the deal is here and a coconspirator let them in and how they did this. So basically they would recruit individuals. Imagine they would find a Keith Jones and say, Keith, I want you to cash a check.
00:13:30:06 – 00:13:32:04
Keith
It’s $10,000 and
00:13:32:04 – 00:13:55:06
Keith
I will give you $2,000 if you give me back $8,000. And Keith thinking this is a sweet deal goes Sure thing. I deposit it. I keep my $2,000. I give this gang back their $8,000. And I think I’m a rich man, except I just took almost all the risk in this endeavor because I’m the one that cashed into my account.
00:13:55:06 – 00:14:03:04
Keith
So if that’s a bad check, officers are going to come to me and the crew, they know that that’s why they recruited these individuals to do that.
00:14:03:04 – 00:14:13:12
Keith
Now, for video viewers, I’m going to pop up a chart of the victims that were in that court paperwork. And here the victims names are actually on there. They’re just company names.
00:14:13:12 – 00:14:32:09
Keith
It’s not actual people. So that’s the reason why I actually showed this one. But the important thing is this. I want to show you the right hand column and for audio listeners, all you need to know is this right hand column. It’s the amount of checks and there’s probably, I’d say, 20 to 30 checks listed on this table.
00:14:32:13 – 00:14:44:56
Keith
Not one check is over $2,000. Actually, most of the checks are 1900 and some odd dollars. So it looks like they’re trying to do this to stay under a radar of detection of some sort.
00:14:44:56 – 00:14:56:27
Keith
They’re not hitting $10,000, which may trigger some kind of bank alert that there’s a lot of money moving. It’s just under $2,000. So, you know, maybe it’ll blend in with the noise.
00:14:56:27 – 00:14:58:02
Keith
Maybe that’s why they they did this.
00:14:58:02 – 00:15:17:04
Keith
So we’ve got dead bodies, we’ve got pandemic fraud, and we’re not even done. But I do have to pause here because we’re at the end of Act one. If there’s anything you liked in Act One, please like subscribe, follow, thumbs up. Whatever the positive affirmation thing is on the platform, you’re either watching me on or listening to me on.
00:15:17:04 – 00:15:42:35
Keith
Now, please, you’re going to have to come back tomorrow for act number two. This one is called the Double Fisting Guns Post. And you go, Why did you name it that? And I tell you, I struggled with this name for act number two for a while. I hope you agree with me that the name kind of fits in after you hear the story, because there was really no other way to explain this whole situation that comes up where Turner is caught doing something pretty egregious that
00:15:42:35 – 00:15:43:47
Keith
I didn’t see coming.
00:15:43:47 – 00:16:01:05
Keith
I mean, I guess maybe you kind of did see coming, but it just didn’t seem real. But it was real. And it’s very interesting. You got to come back tomorrow and catch Act two, which is the double fisting guns post for Jovaughn Turner’s pandemic fraud and guns. Thanks.
Leave a Reply