Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr., today announced the sentencings of a check fraud ring for laundering an intercepted $1.2 million check intended for The Bazooka Companies Inc. (“Bazooka”) for their personal use. Today, ringleader KASHAWN WILLIAMS, 32, was sentenced to 1-to-3 years in prison following his guilty plea to Money Laundering in the First Degree; RONALD FRANKLIN, 50, was sentenced to 1 ½-to-3 years in prison following his guilty plea to Attempted Money Laundering in the Third Degree; and ADREAN JACOBS, 42, was sentenced to 5 years of probation following her guilty plea to Attempted Money Laundering in the Second Degree.
KIEARRA REYNOLDS, 36, previously pleaded guilty to Attempted Money Laundering in the Third Degree and is expected to be sentenced to a promised 1 ½-to-3 year prison sentence on September 30, 2025. JOSE GUTIERREZ, 26, and AKHEIM WATTS, 31, previously pleaded guilty to Attempted Money Laundering in the Second Degree and were sentenced to a 6-month jail/5-year probation split, and 3 years of probation, respectively.
“This ring laundered more than $1.2 million through New York’s banks and financial services using checks for personal and corporate accounts, cashiers’ checks, and large cash withdrawals,” said District Attorney Bragg. “From ‘renovations’ to ‘packaging preorder,’ the memo line of check after check was a farce. I thank our dedicated prosecutors for their work on this case and urge New Yorkers to use secure electronic payment methods to prevent future check fraud.”
According to court documents and statements made on the record in court, and as admitted in their guilty pleas, in October 2022, WILLIAMS incorporated a fictitious entity – The Bazooka Companies 1 Inc. (“Bazooka 1”) – to serve as a conduit for the stolen proceeds of an intercepted $1.2 million check that was mailed to a Manhattan address formerly associated with Bazooka, the creators of Bazooka bubble gum. Three days later, WILLIAMS opened a corporate bank account for Bazooka 1 and deposited the stolen check.
Over the course of the next two weeks, WILLIAMS issued checks from the Bazooka 1 account to JACOBS, WATTS, GUTIERREZ, and REYNOLDS, listing fake reasons for the checks on their memo lines, such as “Renovations,” “Business Loan,” and “Packaging Preorder.” The defendants then deposited these checks into their personal bank accounts and made large cash withdrawals.
WILLIAMS personally withdrew more than $102,600 in cash from the Bazooka 1 account between November 4, 2022, and November 14, 2022. He also transferred $250,000 from the Bazooka 1 corporate account to his personal Chase account, before laundering it by moving the majority to a personal Capital One account, from which he proceeded to withdraw more than $159,000 in cash.
Additionally, the defendants laundered more than $57,000 through cashier’s checks remitted to FRANKLIN. FRANKLIN negotiated for a series of cashier’s checks from the defendants in November 2022, including $32,000 of cashier checks from WILLIAMS through the Bazooka 1 corporate account, and a $25,000 check from JACOBS’ personal account.
Assistant D.A.s Katherine Ellis and Ishan Shivakumar of the Major Economic Crimes Bureau (“MECB”) are handling the prosecution of the case under the supervision of Assistant D.A.s Christine Payne (Deputy MECB Chief) and Michael Ohm (MECB Chief), as well as Executive Assistant D.A. Jodie Kane (Chief of the Investigation Division). The investigation was jointly conducted with Assistant D.A. Andrew Mercer under the supervision of Assistant D.A. Christopher Prevost (Deputy Chief of the Trial Division). Former Assistant D.A. Shrey Sharma (MECB), Rosalind October (Director of the Financial Intelligence Unit), Padraig Friel (Major Case Analyst), Evan Akers (Paralegal), Kaitlyn Saldanha (Paralegal), and Investigators David Caban and Justin Reid all provided valuable assistance with the investigation.
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