Tennessee Man Sentenced To 10 Years In Federal Prison For Passing Counterfeit Securities Of An Organization

Fayetteville, AR – Duane (DAK) Kees, United States Attorney for the Western District of Arkansas, announced today that Jason Jerrell Smith, age 34, of Germantown, Tennessee was sentenced yesterday to 120 months in federal Prison followed by three years supervised release and ordered to pay restitution (the amount of restitution will be determined at a later date by the courts) for one count of Passing Counterfeit Securities of an Organization. The Honorable Timothy L. Brooks presided over the sentencing hearing in the United States District Court in Fayetteville.

According to court records, in June of 2017, Smith was visiting Rogers and Bentonville, Arkansas, and announced that he was running for President of the United States and falsely represented himself as “Joshua Gaters.” During his visit to Northwest Arkansas, Smith wrote and passed a counterfeit check on a local bank in the name of “Gaters and Lester Realty Group.” The check, written in the amount of $22,212.00, was alleged to be for the lease of office space. No such checking account existed with the bank.

Smith was indicted by a federal grand jury in January 2018 and entered a guilty plea in April 2018. 

The investigation was conducted by the United States Secret Service, the Bentonville Police Department, and the Rogers Police Department. Assistant United States Attorney Amy Driver prosecuted the case for the United States.