A Little Rock man who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and identity theft was sentenced to spend nine years in federal prison and to pay more than a half-million dollars in restitution stemming from a series of fraudulent loans he admitted to taking out in 2019 and 2020.
Theodis Dixson, 45, pleaded guilty March 29 to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and two counts of identity theft before U.S. District Judge Brian Miller, admitting that he used the identities of other individuals to fraudulently obtain automobile loans for nonexistent vehicles or vehicles that did not belong to the purported seller.
Between March 15, 2019, and Jan. 28, 2020, records showed that Dixson obtained 12 auto loans ranging from $23,000 to nearly $70,000 from 10 different lenders.
Three of those loans, totaling more than $134,000, were taken out in the name of a man he had purportedly agreed to assist with credit repair. Instead, court records show, Dixson used the man's identity to run up the man's credit card bills and to take out loans in his name. The man told police the following October that he became aware he'd been taken when a lender contacted him demanding payment on a car loan for a car he'd never purchased.
Dixson, records showed, told another victim he would assist in building her business credit but instead took out auto loans in her name without her knowledge.
Records also showed that Dixson and a co-conspirator arranged for a $220,000 loan to purchase a home in Little Rock from a homeowner having financial troubles. The homeowner was told he could continue to live in the home while Dixson made the payments and would be able to buy it back at some point.
Once the loan went through, the homeowner turned over $62,000 to Dixson and the co-conspirator with the understanding the money would be used to make mortgage payments.
Dixson also arranged for a co-conspirator to obtain a $255,000 loan to buy another home, telling the homeowner she could continue to live in the home and invest the equity with Dixson to flip a house in Mississippi. After receiving funds for the home purchase, court records said, she sent $81,964 to Dixson to make the mortgage payments.
Both homes were later foreclosed on by the lenders, court records said.
Citing the non-violent nature of Dixson's crimes, his attorney, Louis Etoch of Helena-West Helena, asked Miller to consider sentencing his client to 57 months on the conspiracy count and to 24 months on each identity theft count and to run all the sentences concurrent to one another. In addition, because Dixson was on supervised release on a previous fraud conviction at the time of the current offenses, Etoch asked that any sentence imposed for that run concurrent to the rest of his sentence, for a total of 81 months in prison.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephanie Mazzanti asked Miller to sentence Dixson to the maximum guideline sentence of 71 months for conspiracy and to add an additional two years each for the two identity theft counts and another two years for the supervised release violations. She asked that he order all the sentences to run consecutive to one another for a total of 121 months.
"The courts in this building have given him chances in the past to turn it around and he hasn't done it," she said. "This is Mr. Dixson's fourth time in federal court on a federal fraud case."
Mazzanti said Dixson had shown he would not comply with the law by continuing to perpetrate fraud schemes to take advantage of others and ignoring orders to pay restitution to his victims.
"He puts himself out as this good person who is going to repair their credit and make their financial situation better, and all that ever happens is they get ripped off," she said. "They're left holding the bag because Mr. Dixson never makes his restitution. They're stuck, their credit is destroyed, and they've got people coming after them to collect on bills."
Asking for leniency, Dixson vowed that he had changed his ways.
"Hearing Ms. Stephanie speak, I'm like, wow, the person I hear her talking about, that's no longer me," he said. "I've had time to recollect on every single thing I ever did to anybody."
Dixson apologized to the court, to his family and to his children for his actions and said he was tired of living as a criminal.
"I'm tired of being on this side of the table, on this side of the law," he said. "I know I'll be rehabilitated in a shorter amount of time than Ms. Stephanie is asking for because I'm already a changed individual."
Following Dixson's remarks, Miller sentenced him to 71 months on the conspiracy count, with an additional 24 months on each of the two identity theft counts to run concurrent to one another but consecutive to the conspiracy sentence, for a total of 95 months. On the release violation, Miller sentenced him to an additional 24 months in prison with half to run concurrent and half to run consecutive to his other sentences, for a total of 107 months. Miller also ordered Dixson to pay $578,228 in restitution.
Afterward, the judge told Dixson he could have easily justified sentencing him to 10 or 12 years or more but decided that nine years would be an appropriate prison term, despite having some reservations.
"I'm not going to sit here and lie to you and tell you that I bought your story that you're going to change," Miller said. "Hopefully, there is change, but I'll tell your family and you that when I see a person here who's done the same thing over and over, essentially what I gather is that's who that person is."