A Florida man charged with trying to extort money and a new car from a car dealer has been charged with a host of new crimes arising from allegedly impersonating a prosecutor in an attempt to get himself off the extortion charge.
Christian Mosco was accused of trying to extort $50 000 from a car dealer by threatening to expose alleged mishandling of customer information by the dealer if he was not paid the money, and given a car. The dealer turned over the messages to the police, who filed charges against Mosco.
Mosco then tried to have the charges dropped by using the names of two assistant state attorneys and their Florida Bar ID numbers, and by using fake email addresses containing one of the attorney’s names.
Mosco allegedly filed an ‘announcement of no information’ motion with the city under the prosecutors’ names using a similar document from another case, but edited to match his own.
However, his letter contradicted the motion the prosecutors had already filed, and the conflicting documents raised the suspicion of a clerk who notified officials.
Mosco now faces two counts of falsely impersonating a prosecutor and two counts of the fraudulent use of identification, as well as additional charges of practising law without authority, uttering a forgery, and fraudulently acting as a state attorney.
If convicted, he could face decades in prison.