PEORIA, Ill. – An East Peoria man has been indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly conducting a wire fraud and identity theft scheme.
The US Department of Justice says 35-year-old Stephen Keith was indicted Tuesday on multiple counts for the scheme that allegedly ran between August of 2020 to August of 2024.
Court documents allege that Keith claimed to run a company called DeviceLyfe that was never registered to the state of Illinois, and used it to gain access to homes and electronic devices to steal personal information.
Prosecutors say Keith also allegedly downloaded personal and financial information for tens of millions of individuals, then used it to create false documents to access accounts and steal funds.
Keith was charged this month and is in federal custody.
The indictment lists 11 charges against Keith. He is charged with four counts of Wire Fraud, one count of Obtaining Information by Computer from a Financial Institution, three counts of Possession of a Means of Identification, two counts of Aggravated Identity Theft, and one count of Making a False Statement.
The Department of Justice says Keith is facing up to 20 years in prison for each count of wire fraud, and up to five years each on the computer, identification, and false statement charges. Keith is facing a mandatory sentence of two consecutive years imprisonment on the aggravated identity theft counts.
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