Birmingham Man Pleads Guilty For Fraud On Fallen Officer Fund

BIRMINGHAM, AL — A Birmingham man pleaded guilty Friday to fraud charges surrounding a memorial fund set up for the family of a fallen Huntsville police officer. Devonte Lemond Hammonds, 27, pleaded guilty to one count of access device fraud and one count of wire fraud.

In December 2019, Hammonds devised a scheme to fraudulently obtain money from the Billy Clardy Memorial Fund, according to court documents. Billy Clardy was a Huntsville Police officer killed in the line of duty in 2019. After Officer Clardy’s death, a memorial fund was established to collect contributions and provide aid to his family.

Hammonds used the identity of another person to open a bank account and transfer funds from the Billy Clardy Memorial Fund bank account to the fictitious account for his own use, according to the plea agreement. Hammonds also devised a scheme to defraud customers of the U.S. Postal Service.

Hammonds used the U.S. Postal Service website to reroute mail from numerous U.S. Postal Service customers to addresses in Birmingham that he could access, used the rerouted mail to obtain personal identifying information of those customers and used that information to pay bills, make purchases and open new accounts.

The maximum penalty for access device fraud is ten years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The maximum penalty for wire fraud affecting a financial institution is thirty years in prison and a $250,000 fine.