In the last month, a previous Cincinnati lawyer, identified as Richard Crosby, has pled not guilty to several charges claiming the use of aliases and fabricated qualifications to secure high-profile positions at law firms in Washington, D.C., and Florida. The charges come following his arrest in late October.
The charges were filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio and include 13 counts of wire fraud, three counts of social security number fraud, and three counts of aggravated identity theft. Interestingly, it has come to light that although the initial criminal complaint only mentioned three law firms, the alleged fraudulent applications were in fact submitted to around six different law firms across the nation.
According to the indictment, two law firms gave him employment and he succeeded in negotiating employment terms with two more. Allegedly, he also received an attractive wage offer from a fifth law firm. The name of Mr. Crosby’s aliases, as the allegation goes, includes Richard Williams and Chris Miller.
Previous charges of fraud and telecommunications fraud were brought against Crosby in June and November 2021, to which he confessed in May 2023, and was sentenced to probation. Currently, he is represented by a Federal Public Defender in Cincinnati. The trial is recognized as United States v. Crosby, S.D. Ohio, No. 1:23-cr-00111, 11/16/23.