Two Southern Illinois Women Sentenced for Roles in Credit Card Skimming Conspiracy

Stephen R. Wigginton, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, announced today that Jamie Lynn Erwin, 32, of Glen Carbon, Illinois, and Shadwonna Marie Bausily, 22, of Alton, Illinois, were sentenced today in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois for their roles in a credit card skimming operation that stole the credit card information of customers of Amarillo Tex’s Steakhouse and Saloon in Alton, Illinois, in 2010. Both women pled guilty to a one-count indictment charging each of them with conspiracy to commit access device fraud in June 2010.

Shadwonna Bausily was sentenced to a three-year term of probation and was ordered to pay restitution and a $100 special assessment for her role in the conspiracy. Bausily previously admitted that in 2010 she was working as a hostess at Amarillo Tex’s Steakhouse and Saloon in Alton, Illinois. A man with whom she had a romantic relationship, Miltiano Johnson, taught her to use a credit card skimmer, a small device capable of capturing credit card numbers and account information by swiping a credit card through a card-reading portion of the device. Johnson recruited Bausily to help him gather credit card information from customers of Amarillo Tex’s.

Jamie Erwin was sentenced to a five-year term of probation for her role and was ordered to pay restitution and a $100 special assessment. Erwin, who had previously pled guilty, admitted that she was working as a waitress at the Amarillo Tex’s when Bausily approached her about helping Johnson and Bausily skim credit card information. Johnson and Bausily offered to pay Erwin to run customers’ credit cards through the skimmer when she took payments from them and then to return the skimmer full of credit card information to Johnson.

After Johnson received the skimmer back from Bausily and Erwin, he collected the stored information from the device. He then transferred the account information onto physical credit cards, generally using prepaid credit cards. Miltiano Johnson along with his wife, Carlene Johnson, and friend, Michael Montgomery, would use the cards encoded with victim credit card information to purchase items at stores in the St. Louis metro area.

Miltiano Johnson was sentenced to 57 months in prison on July 8, 2011. Michael Montgomery was sentenced to one year and 1 day in prison on November 4, 2011. Carlene Johnson is awaiting re-sentencing on September 28, 2012.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Cybercrimes Task Force, and in particular, by Detective David Vucich of the Madison County Sheriff’s Department. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Katherine L. Lewis.