Jason Blackard, 38, netted hundreds of thousands of dollars in the multi-year fraud scheme.
SAN FRANCISCO — A Concord resident received five-and-a-half years in federal prison Wednesday, after pleading guilty to a multi-year identity theft scheme that cost victims more than $250,000.
Jason Blackard, 38, was sentenced Wednesday afternoon by U.S. District Judge Maxine Chesney. He pleaded guilty last October to “committing a series of frauds and theft” from January 2019 to Feburary 2021. The ill-gotten gains were spent on clothes, hardware from Home Depot, a $58,000 sportscar, a motorboat, and a Mercedes Benz, prosecutors say.
Blackard’s attorney, assistant federal public defender Elizabeth Falk, wrote in a sentencing memo that Blackard was working to right his wrongs, and quoted a sergeant at Santa Rita Jail who praised Blackard’s work ethic in a jail work program. “By pleading guilty to his conduct over that entire period of time, Mr. Blackard is fully coming to grips with his lifestyle and well recognizes he has caused enormous harm to individuals and businesses alike,” Falk wrote, later adding, “In his own words, he was a menace to society, and he wanted to close out all those cases with guilty pleas and ‘make things right.’ ”