Georgia inmate Arthur Lee Cofield Jr. allegedly scammed famed businessman Sidney Kimmel out of $11 million while in prison.
According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Cofield Jr. is accused of swindling $11 million from Kimmel in 2020 while serving time in a maximum-security prison. He allegedly obtained the whopping amount from Kimmel’s Charles Schwab account while behind bars in the Georgia Department of Corrections’ Special Management Unit. He had reportedly done so by using a contraband phone to impersonate the 94-year-old media mogul.
Kimmel is best known as the CEO of Sidney Kimmel Entertainment which financially backed the hit films Crazy Rich Asians (2018) and Hell Or High Water (2016), among many others. He’s reportedly worth $1.5 billion, Forbes reported.
Prosecutors said Cofield Jr. allegedly used the illegally extracted funds to purchase over 6,000 American Eagle one-ounce gold coins flown to Atlanta via private jet. They also alleged that he used the money to buy a $4.4 million mansion in Buckhead with the help of his daughter, Eliayah Bennett, 27, and a man named Eldridge Bennett, 65.
The alleged heist is reportedly called “potentially one of the biggest heists ever pulled off from inside an American prison.” It’s also believed that the 31-year-old inmate stole millions of dollars from other billionaires.
“Cofield was a shrewd, intelligent individual who could con you out of millions,” said Jose Morales, a warden at the Special Management Unit Cofield Jr. was in.
Matthew Kamens, Kimmel’s advisor, said via an email that the mogul was “unaffected by whatever occurred” and that they “have no knowledge” of it.
“Mr. Kimmel was unaffected by whatever occurred, and we have no knowledge of what occurred, either in terms of background or context,” Kamens wrote.
Mayura Hooper, a spokesperson for Charles Schwab, additionally released a statement saying the company “launched an investigation” as soon as the company “was aware of suspected fraudulent activity.”
“As soon as Schwab was aware of suspected fraudulent activity, we launched an investigation, initiated measures to protect the client’s account, and notified the authorities. As you can appreciate, this is an ongoing investigation, and as such, we cannot comment further,” Hooper said.
She added that the bank reimbursed Kimmel for the total amount based on their policy regarding the unauthorized activity.
