Falsely Identifying Robbery Suspect

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INDIANAPOLIS--A man from Indianapolis has been sentenced to six years in federal prison for falsely identifying a robbery suspect in order to claim a reward.

Court documents say on April 1, 2022, a letter carrier with the United States Post Office was robbed on South Reisner Street in Indianapolis. Immediately after that, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service said they were offering a $50,000 reward to anyone providing information that lead to a suspect’s arrest or conviction.

On April 7, a man named Carl Davis called the tip line and said he saw the robbery and claimed a man named M.S. held a weapon, knocked the letter carrier down, took something from him, and ran away.

Davis claimed that M.S. told him on Facebook Messenger that he robbed the letter carrier and showed images of the conversation between them to investigators.

The Department of Justice says these messages were lies because they found that the M.S. Facebook account was created by Davis to set M.S. up. Davis admitted he did it because he “disliked M.S. for personal reasons” and lied with the hope of getting him put in prison and collecting the money. Police say M.S. did not commit the robbery.

“Greed and a petty personal beef do not entitle someone to lie and fabricate evidence in a federal investigation. The defendant’s attempt to frame an innocent person for a violent crime and collect the reward money was despicable,” said Zachary A. Myers, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana. “The prison sentence imposed here demonstrates that serious crimes like this carry serious consequences. I commend the work of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service to quickly debunk the defendant’s lies and ensure that he is held accountable.”

Indy Man Gets Six Months in Prison for Falsely Identifying Robbery Suspect was originally published on wibc.com