New York woman used fake IDs to get ‘high-end’ apartments for gang members

A con artist used stolen identities to rent high-end apartments to gang members in New York – and business was so good she drove a Bentley and lived in a luxury Manhattan building overlooking the Hudson, according to authorities.

When federal agents arrested Latoya Williams, 35, at her Waterline Square home on W. 61st St. on Wednesday, they found hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, law enforcement sources said.

A murder in Queens helped the FBI unravel Williams’ scheme, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court in Brooklyn.

Police found the bullet-riddled body of a member of Makk Balla Brims in Queens on February 7, 2021, and a search of the dead man’s phone revealed a match to Williams’ number – which was on his contact list. , according to the complaint.

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This murder victim, Tyrone Jones, 37, was shot dead by Law and Order: SVU actor Isaiah Stokes, in a fight over a woman, police and prosecutors said.

Williams has been running the rental scam for at least 2020 and “has used fake IDs, pay stubs, tax documents and other falsified documents to obtain property rentals and utilities in high-end apartment buildings. range in and around New York,” according to the complaint.

Victims whose identities she stole have been targeted by lawsuits and debt collection services, trying to recover months of unpaid rent, prosecutors say.

And police found five handguns hidden in a Brooklyn apartment they had rented from the Wood City gang, prosecutors said.

When law enforcement raided a Yonkers apartment used by the Wood City gang in August 2021, they found more clues to his operation, including letters asking one of the victims to identity fraud from paying his rent late.

An investigation found this person, and the name of a second victim, on the leases of several other apartments, including two places in Brooklyn.

A Brooklyn management company kept a photo of Williams when it saw an apartment under one of the victim’s names in October 2020, and last November the FBI monitored her as she renewed the lease from an apartment in Bayonne, NJ under the name of the other victim, according to the complaint.