{"id":370809,"date":"2026-06-22T23:52:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T23:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/370809\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T23:52:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T23:52:07","slug":"tennessee-man-pleads-guilty-in-fresno-1-5m-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/370809\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennessee man pleads guilty in Fresno $1.5M fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Tennessee man pleaded guilty on Monday to an attempt to commit $1.5 million<\/a> in wire fraud on Fresno County with the help of a man in Germany, the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office said.<\/p>\n

Jafaar September Nyangoro, 53, of Franklin, Tennessee, entered the guilty plea in a Fresno court for the scheme that lasted a couple of months in September and October 2020, according to prosecutors. The other five charges would be dismissed as part of a plea deal, according to court records.<\/p>\n

Nyangoro and Peter Bah Acha, 45, of Berlin, Germany, were named in a six-count indictment that included conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud related to the scheme that secretly gained control of an email account used by the finance director of a Fresno nonprofit. They used it to submit fraudulent invoices to Fresno County for payment through \u201cautomated clearing house\u201d transactions, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n

Nyangoro\u2019s attorney declined to comment on Monday.<\/p>\n

Fresno County was able to recover $112,000 after the fraud was discovered, a county\u2019s spokesperson previously said. About $875,000 was covered by the county\u2019s insurance. The county has since implemented new processes in an attempt to prevent future fraud and staffers also attended new training, the spokesperson previously said.<\/p>\n

The scammers fraudulently represented themselves as the nonprofit, routing payments to an account held by Nyangoro, according to prosecutors. The county changed the bank account information over to the fraudulent one used in the scam upon request from fraudsters.<\/p>\n

The accused men communicated through WhatsApp, an encrypted messaging app. Prosecutors allege that after the bank reversed some of the clearing house charges on Oct. 16, 2020, Nyangoro sent a message that said, \u201cWe\u2019re in deep sh**. The last 3 transactions from County of Fresno have been reversed. Please call me ASAP!\u201d<\/p>\n

Nyangoro is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Thurston on Sept. 21. He faces a maximum statutory penalty of 20 years in prison and a fine up to $250,000 as well as restitution.<\/p>\n

His plea agreement also says \u201cit is virtually certain\u201d Nyangoro will be removed from the country because he is not a citizen.<\/p>\n

The co-defendant Bah Acha had not been arrested, and his fate remained unclear, according to Lauren Horwood, the attorney\u2019s office spokesperson.<\/p>\n

Related Stories from Fresno Bee<\/p>\n


\n \"Profile
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Thaddeus Miller<\/a><\/p>\n

Merced Sun-Star<\/p>\n

Reporter Thaddeus Miller has covered cities in the central San Joaquin Valley since 2010, writing about everything from breaking news to government and police accountability. A native of Fresno, he joined The Fresno Bee in 2019 after time in Merced and Los Banos.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Tennessee man pleaded guilty on Monday to an attempt to commit $1.5 million in wire fraud on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-370809","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\/370809","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=370809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}