{"id":370692,"date":"2026-06-22T22:05:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T22:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/370692\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T22:05:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T22:05:08","slug":"tennessee-man-pleads-guilty-to-1-5m-fraud-case-in-fresno-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/370692\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennessee man pleads guilty to $1.5M fraud case in Fresno County"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>FRESNO, Calif. (FOX26) \u2014 A Tennessee man has pleaded guilty in a scheme that sent more than $1.5 million in Fresno County payments to a bank account he opened after conspirators took over a nonprofit finance director\u2019s email, federal prosecutors said.<\/p>\n<p>53-year-old Jafaar September Nyangoro of Franklin, Tennessee, pleaded guilty Monday to conspiracy to commit wire fraud related to a scheme to defraud Fresno County, U.S. Attorney Eric Grant announced.<\/p>\n<p>According to court documents, Nyangoro, 46-year-old co-defendant Peter Bah Acha of Berlin, Germany, and others secretly gained control of an email account used by the finance director of a Fresno nonprofit in September 2020. <\/p>\n<p>[RELATED] <a href=\"https:\/\/kmph.com\/news\/local\/los-angeles-school-district-superintendent-resigns-amid-fbi-investigation-board-of-education-lausd-alberto-carvalho-raid-doj\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Los Angeles school district superintendent resigns amid FBI investigation into Ai project<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Posing as the finance director, they submitted fraudulent invoices to Fresno County for payment through Automated Clearing House (ACH) transactions.<\/p>\n<p>They told Fresno County the nonprofit\u2019s bank account information had changed and directed payments to an account at a different bank that Nyangoro had recently opened, according to court documents. <\/p>\n<p>Believing they were communicating with the legitimate nonprofit, county employees updated the nonprofit\u2019s bank account information.<\/p>\n<p>Between Sept. 24, 2020, and Oct. 13, 2020, Fresno County initiated several ACH transfers totaling more than $1.5 million to Nyangoro\u2019s bank account instead of the nonprofit\u2019s bank account, according to court documents.<\/p>\n<p>Court documents say Nyangoro, Acha, and others communicated with each other through various means, including WhatsApp. <\/p>\n<p>On Oct. 16, 2020, after Regions Bank reversed some of the ACH transfers for suspected fraud.<\/p>\n<p>Nyangoro sent a WhatsApp message: \u201cWe\u2019re in deep s***. The last 3 transactions from County of Fresno have been reversed. Please call me ASAP!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nyangoro is scheduled to be sentenced on September 21st, when he faces a maximum statutory penalty of 20 years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000, and restitution. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FRESNO, Calif. (FOX26) \u2014 A Tennessee man has pleaded guilty in a scheme that sent more than $1.5&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-370692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}