{"id":1406671,"date":"2025-04-22T15:53:05","date_gmt":"2025-04-22T20:53:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=1406671"},"modified":"2025-04-25T06:21:35","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T11:21:35","slug":"life-in-prison-for-credit-card-skimming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=1406671","title":{"rendered":"Life in prison for credit card skimmer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>TYLER &#8211; <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2016\/08\/Jail-cell-prison-jpg_9875172_ver1.0-e1736963219809-200x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" class=\"alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-521021\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2016\/08\/Jail-cell-prison-jpg_9875172_ver1.0-e1736963219809-200x200.jpg 200w, https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2016\/08\/Jail-cell-prison-jpg_9875172_ver1.0-e1736963219809.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chron.com\/\">Houston Chronicle<\/a> reports that Edward Estrada\u2019s client already had admitted to skimming \u2014 installing devices inside gas pumps to steal customers\u2019 credit card information. But the Tyler lawyer wanted to make sure jurors understood that it didn\u2019t rank with more serious financial crimes. As he prepared for the 2019 sentencing hearing, Estrada settled on a comparison. His client wasn\u2019t nearly as bad as Enron, the giant Houston energy company whose executives misled investors for years, he stressed. While his client\u2019s crimes cost victims collectively more than $150,000 \u2014 much of it reimbursed by banks \u2014 Enron lost billions. The Smith County jury apparently took the differences into account, but not in the way Estrada hoped. Enron executives faced sentences of 45 and 24 years. For his skimming, the jury sentenced Felipe Manuel Nieves-Perez to life in prison \u2014 \u201cstriking and alarming,\u201d Estrada said.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The sentence wasn\u2019t an outlier. In recent years, East Texas skimmers have received prison terms more commonly associated with violent criminals who commit murder or sexual assault. Jorge Rondon-Martinez was sentenced to 30 years in prison for his skimming crimes. Nelson Fernandez-Lopez received 45 years. Duniesky Gonzalez got 50. Yoelvis Herrera, 65. In addition to Nieves-Perez, at least two other men in Smith County \u2014 Fabrizio Slatineanu and Yoerlan Suarez-Corrales \u2014 have received sentences of life in prison for credit card skimming. Local law enforcement have trumpeted the stiff punishments as justice done right \u2014 an aggressive response to a problem that needed concentrated attention. Responding to a rash of local incidents, Smith County officials pushed for tough new state laws. A committed local prosecutor used them vigorously. And a new state-funded financial crimes center located in Tyler helped. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>TYLER &#8211; The Houston Chronicle reports that Edward Estrada\u2019s client already had admitted to skimming \u2014 installing devices inside gas pumps to steal customers\u2019 credit card information. But the Tyler lawyer wanted to make sure jurors understood that it didn\u2019t rank with more serious financial crimes. As he prepared for the 2019 sentencing hearing, Estrada &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=1406671\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Life in prison for credit card skimmer<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":1406673,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2016\/08\/Jail-cell-prison-jpg_9875172_ver1.0-e1736963219809-200x200.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1406671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-09 09:38:41","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2016\/08\/Jail-cell-prison-jpg_9875172_ver1.0-e1736963219809-200x200.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1406671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1406671"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1406671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1406782,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1406671\/revisions\/1406782"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1406673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1406671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1406671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1406671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}