{"id":371174,"date":"2026-06-23T05:48:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T05:48:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/371174\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T05:48:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T05:48:20","slug":"man-pleads-guilty-in-1-5m-fraud-on-fresno-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/371174\/","title":{"rendered":"Man pleads guilty in $1.5M fraud on Fresno County"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img width=\"1140\" height=\"470\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/coyle-courthouse.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"fresno federal court\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"  \/>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"attach_desc\">The Robert E. Coyle Federal Courthouse in Downtown Fresno. File photo<\/p>\n<p>A Franklin, Tennessee man pleaded guilty Monday to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with a scheme that diverted more than $1.5 million from Fresno County through fraudulent electronic payments, U.S. Attorney Eric Grant announced.<\/p>\n<p>J<a href=\"https:\/\/thebusinessjournal.com\/fresno-county-fell-victim-to-1-5m-phishing-scam-in-2020-suspects-indicted-this-week\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">afaar September Nyangoro, 53, admitted to his role in a scheme<\/a> that required getting unauthorized access used by the finance director of a Fresno non-profit.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors said Nyangoro, co-defendant Peter Bah Acha of Berlin, Germany and others used the compromised account to submit fraudulent invoices and impersonate the nonprofit\u2019s finance director.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The defendants allegedly informed Fresno County employees that the nonprofit\u2019s banking information had changed and directed payments to a bank account Nyangoro had opened. County employees updated the information under the assumption the request was legitimate.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Between Sept. 24 and Oct.13 in 2020, Fresno County made several Automated Clearing House transfers that added up to more than $1.5 million to Nyangoro\u2019s account instead of the nonprofit\u2019s, according to court records.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The nonprofit was Turning Point Solutions of Central California, which provides behavioral health and substance abuse disorder services. County officials said that they recovered around $112,000 after discovering the fraud, while insurance covered $875,000 in losses.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Investigators said Nyangoro and others communicated through WhatsApp. After some transactions were reversed by Regions Bank due to suspected fraud, Nyangoro allegedly messaged: \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 Sept. 21, and faces up to 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and restitution.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Robert E. Coyle Federal Courthouse in Downtown Fresno. File photo A Franklin, Tennessee man pleaded guilty Monday&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-371174","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\/371174","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=371174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}