A man who impersonated a former colleague for over 30 years has been found guilty, and the victim was mistakenly identified as the impersonator, arrested, and spent two years in prison and a psychiatric hospital.

A man who spent the rest of his life impersonating a co-worker he worked at at a hot dog stand in the 1980s, and who ended up working as a systems administrator at a hospital, has been convicted, and the victim of his identity theft was arrested for 'impersonating' the man, who spent nearly two years in prison and a psychiatric hospital for continuing to insist he was who he was.

Northern District of Iowa | Former Hospital Administrator Pleads Guilty in Identity Theft Scheme That Spanned Three Decades | United States Department of Justice

Furious hot dog cart vendor whose identity was stolen by hospital exec reveals all about being thrown in a mental hospital for TWO YEARS for complaining about $200,000 in debt the thief racked up in his name | Daily Mail Online
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13290993/William-Woods-identity-theft-jail-Matthew-David-Keirans.html

Former University of Iowa Hospital employee used fake identity for 35 years | The Gazette
https://www.thegazette.com/crime-courts/former-university-of-iowa-hospital-employee-used-fake-identity-for-35-years/

It all started in the late 1980s when William Woods, an employee at a hot dog joint in Albuquerque, New Mexico, lost his wallet. Woods asked a co-worker he had never met before if he had seen his wallet, but when he said nothing, he started to confront him, pounding his fist into him. The co-worker then produced Woods' wallet. That co-worker was Matthew David Kierans, who was convicted this time.

At the time, Woods' wallet contained his birth certificate and social security number, but he recalled, 'I didn't think anything of it at the time. I never thought he'd do anything.'

However, in reality, Kierans, who obtained Woods' Social Security number during the case, gradually began impersonating Woods, and by 1988 had stopped using his own name and Social Security number.

According to The Mail Online, Kierans obtained a Colorado ID in 1990, opened a bank account and got a job at a restaurant, bought a car in 1991, and married in 1994 and had a child.

After moving to Wisconsin, Kierans used information he found on a genealogy website to obtain a copy of Woods' birth certificate. In 2013, he was employed as an IT architect at the University of Iowa Hospital. He reportedly earned more than $700,000 over the 10 years up to 2023. During that time, from August 2016 to May 2022, he borrowed a total of $200,000 from a credit union in the northern Iowa region in eight loans, including auto loans and personal loans.

Meanwhile, Woods, who was homeless as of 2019, noticed that someone was taking out a loan using his credit and went to the bank and claimed that he didn't want to pay the debt and wanted to close the bank account. Because the account in question had a large amount of deposits, the bank manager asked Woods 'security questions' for security reasons. However, Woods was unable to answer the questions.

After receiving a report from the bank, the Los Angeles Police Department contacted Mr. Woods, who was supposed to be the account owner, i.e. defendant Kierans. The defendant responded that he had not given anyone access to the account and sent his driver's license and other identification to the Los Angeles Police Department. At this time, the name on the driver's license was not 'William Donald Woods' but 'William David Woods,' which includes Kierans' real name. Kierans explained that 'I sometimes use David as my middle name, but my real name is Donald.'

After the ID was submitted, the Los Angeles Police Department recognized Kierans as Woods. They arrested the real Woods as 'suspect Matthew Kierans' and detained him in the Los Angeles County Jail. At this point, it is unclear why the name 'Matthew Kierans,' who is supposed to be completely impersonating Woods, was used, as there is no mention of this in the Department of Justice announcement. By the way, Kierans' name is spelled 'K ei rans,' while the suspect name given to Woods is spelled 'K ie rans,' which is slightly incorrect.

During his trial, Woods consistently maintained that he was not Matthew Kierans. As a result, the court found Woods mentally incompetent to stand trial and had him hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital. After spending 428 days (about one year and two months) in prison and 147 days (just under five months) in a psychiatric hospital, Woods accepted his guilt and was released immediately.

However, the state court ordered Woods to pay a $400 fine and use the name 'Matthew Kierans.' Woods, who could not be Kierans, repeatedly claimed to be William Woods to California and Wisconsin authorities. Each time, Kierans filed a false report claiming to be Woods.

Struggling to find a solution, Woods continued to investigate the person impersonating him, eventually tracking him down at the University of Iowa Hospital in January 2023.

After Woods contacted the hospital's security department, they contacted the police, and veteran Detective Ian Mallory was put in charge of the case. Mallory spent several months investigating and uncovered how Kierans had stolen the identities of the victims.

The conclusive result was a DNA test conducted on Woods' biological father, who lives in Kentucky, based on his birth certificate, which confirmed that Woods was indeed the son of this Kentucky man.

In July 2023, when Detective Mallory visited Kierans, he initially claimed that Woods was a 'crazy person' and that he needed help and needed to be restrained, but when he was presented with the results of the DNA test, he admitted that he had been impersonating Woods. According to CBS News, when he was shown the evidence, Kierans said, 'My life is over. It's all gone.'

Former hospital IT worker pleads guilty to 3-decade identity theft that led to his victim being jailed - CBS News
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/william-woods-matthew-keirans-former-hospital-it-worker-guilty-identity-theft-victim-jailed-iowa/

Mr Kierans' wife said: 'His motive was simple - he wanted the family and home he was denied when he was younger.'

A federal court in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, sentenced Keelands on April 1, 2024, for making false statements to an insurance agency and identity theft. He faces a minimum sentence of two years and a maximum of 32 years in prison, a $1.25 million fine, and up to five years of supervision after serving any prison sentence.

According to the Mail Online, Woods was staying with a friend in El Paso, Texas, and said, 'Next I need to pick everything up and rebuild myself.'