It’s a crime ring with a name that has a do-gooder ring to it: “Operation Homeless.”
What sounds like an initiative to help the growing number of people in Montana with no place to live is actuallypart of a multi-state criminal operation preying on “local homeless individuals who possessed valid ID cards,” according to a Monday statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Montana.
The homeless people were then given fraudulent checks to attempt to cash, then would give the money to the men who scooped them up. If they were caught trying to pass the forged checks, the homeless were “abandoned to take the blame,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office says.
A Georgia man who defrauded banks in multiple states was sentenced to nearly five years in prison Monday, to be followed by five years of supervised release. A co-defendant awaits sentencing.
Their story stands out because, as U.S. Attorney Timothy Racicot put it in a sentencing memorandum, “The defendant’s conduct in this case was despicable.”
“Such a word is not to be used lightly, but in this case, it fits,” added Racicot, one of several U.S. attorneys nationwide prosecuting bank fraudsters who target the homeless.
As Racicot put it, “It takes a particular kind of psychology to see homelessness not as something deserving of sympathy but rather as an opportunity.”
Recruit, Outfit and Cash
“Operation Homeless, is a nationwide fraudulent check-cashing scheme involving a highly organized operation that persuades homeless individuals to cash fake checks, usually resulting in tens-of-thousands of dollars being stolen,” according to the Livingstone Police Department.
In Montana, “Operation Homeless” appeared as a Dodge Durango prowling the streets of Bozeman. Inside were Stanford Wilvin Lightfoot, Decoriss Darnell Smith and other unidentified men, all alleged members of the crime ring.
In the summer of 2023, Lightfoot, Smith and others drove up on homeless people and tried to recruit them into the scheme.
“A man contacted Bozeman Police to report he was the victim of an attempted abduction the day before,” reported MTN News in 2023. “The man said four other men in an SUV wanted him to change his clothes and cash checks for them in exchange for money, which the man refused to do.”
But resisting what sounds like easy money isn’t easy for some. The ring recruited multiple people willing to participate in the fraud on the promise of a same-day cash payout.
Lightfoot, Smith and at least one other man recruited Joseph Trowbridge in Bozeman and drove him 25 miles east to Livingston.
“If you're a homeless person and somebody is offering you $1,000 for an hour of your time to cash a check? That's pretty easy to do,” Livingston Police Chief Wayne Hard told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday.
On July 19, 2023, Hard said members of the ring dressed up Trowbridge in work clothes and handed him a forged check for $7,189.11 from Comfort Heating & Air Conditioning.
“Sometimes it was business casual. It just depended on what the check was,” said Hard.
For Trowbridge it was “construction type clothing,” added Hard, whose officers were called to First Interstate Bank when Trowbridge tried to cash the check.
“They were able to take Trowbridge into custody and based on some of what he told them, and really good investigative work by the responding officers, they were able to locate the vehicle with Lightfoot and Smith. The Dodge Durango,” said Hard.
“There was a third suspect with them. Another officer engaged in a foot chase, but he was able to get away,” said Hard.
Penetrating Operation Homeless
Work by Livingston PD pulled back the curtain on Lightfoot and Smith’s apparent role in a national check fraud ring.
When apprehended in Livingston, according to court documents, “They had a large amount of cash on their persons and a key to a nearby hotel. Officers searched the hotel pursuant to a search warrant and located a printer and pieces of a check that had been flushed down the toilet.”
The scheme worked like this: Members of the check fraud ring obtained signatory names, account numbers and routing numbers for local banks and their business clients.
“It can be pretty sophisticated, and there's a lot of technology out there that can help somebody do that,” said Hard. “One of the items that were recovered in a search warrant was a laser printer.”
After printing off what looked like legitimate paychecks from a local business, members of the fraud ring forged the signature of the check signatory for the business.
Then members of the ring went looking for “homeless men to go into the banks and pass checks because they intended to let these poor souls take the fall if anything went wrong,” according to U.S. Attorney Racicot.
“That is a level of brutal predation that is difficult to stomach,” continued Racicot in a sentencing document. “It’s shameful.”
It was also widespread, according to the U.S. Attorney’s case against Lightfoot. It connected him to a fake check cashing crime wave in Maine. Other federal cases reveal similar activity in Missouri, Rhode Island, Idaho and Wyoming.
Beyond connecting Lightfoot to bank fraud in Maine, court documents don’t link up all the similar cases involving phony checks.
News reports about a 2024 case in Montana quoted a defendant from Texas, who explained that he targeted rural areas because they were a “little ‘country’ and the bank process was slower than in Texas.”
Lightfoot, a 33-year-old from Atlanta, Georgia, pleaded guilty to bank fraud and aggravated identity theft. He was sentenced Monday to 57 months in prison and ordered to pay $161,401.17 in restitution.
Smith, Lightfoot’s co-defendant, also pleaded guilty on counts of bank fraud and aggravated identity theft.
Why Montana?
In addition to having “little country” banks, in the eyes of bank fraudsters, Montana is also dealing with a growing population of homeless people.
As places like Bozeman continue to pave new streets and support an ongoing building boom, those new streets become inhabited with people living in their cars and campers.
A 2024 report from the Montana Continuum of Care Coalition identified 2,008 Montanans it classified as “homeless.”
In Bozeman and Livingston, the number sits around 452.
David Madison can be reached at david@cowboystatedaily.com.
