PA Man Impersonated Trump's Family To Rip Off Hundreds: Feds

Philadelphia PA

09 June, 2021

10:35 AM

Description

MECHANICSBURG, PA — A Pennsylvania man passed himself off as a relative of former President Donald Trump and duped hundreds of fans into donating money to phony political groups, the Justice Department said Tuesday. Joshua Hall, 22, of Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, was arrested Tuesday and charged with wire fraud and identity theft. The FBI said Hall ripped off hundreds of Americans and collected thousands of dollars in the yearlong scheme. Hall had more than 100,000 followers on various fake social media accounts, and using photos of Trump family members to bolster his claim they were helping him raise money was "central to the scheme," said prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York. There was no actual political organization, prosecutors said, and Hall used the money he raised for personal spending. Hall claimed the money would be used for "field organization and merchandise" and that he hadn't "seen a dime of that money personally," the FBI said in a statement. Prosecutors accuse Hall of pretending to be Barron Trump and using a likeness of the former president's teenage son in a post claiming Hall was a "friend and partner" of Donald Trump. "Josh is an amazing patriot who is doing tremendous things for our great country," one of the posts read. "He has my COMPLETE AND TOTAL ENDORSEMENT." Hall even duped President Trump, The New York Times reported in a December story exposing Hall. In a tweet, Trump thanked his sister Elizabeth Trump Grau for writing in an article on a conservative website that she backed the president's efforts to overturn the election results. "Thank you Elizabeth," Trump wrote on Twitter. "LOVE." But as Jack Nicas reported for The Times, the story wasn't written by the president's sister but by a food delivery driver from Mechanicsville, Pennsylvania. Hall told Nicas that when he saw Trump's tweet, "I was like, 'Oh my goodness. He actually thinks it's his sister.'" Nicas wrote for The Times that Hall also used the accounts to circulate off-color political commentary and far-out conspiracy theories, including those claiming the U.S. government wanted to implant Americans with microchips and that John F. Kennedy Jr. did not die in a 1999 plane crash and would replace Mike Pence as the vice president. Hall told Nicas "there was no nefarious intention behind it" and that he "was just trying to rally up MAGA supporters and have fun." If convicted of the charges, Hall could go to prison for more than two decades. Wire fraud carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, and aggravated identity theft carries a mandatory consecutive sentence of two years in prison.