Man gets nearly four years in prison for using stolen identities of UC San Diego students

A man who used stolen personal information of students at UC San Diego in La Jolla to apply for bank accounts, loans and hundreds of thousands of dollars in unemployment benefits was sentenced July 6 to nearly four years in prison.

Nehemiah Joel Weaver also was ordered to pay restitution of just over $225,000.

He pleaded guilty to obtaining student information through his then-girlfriend and co-defendant, Mia Nikole Bell. She also pleaded guilty and was sentenced last year to four months in prison, plus eight months of home detention.

According to prosecutors, Bell worked in a human-resources role at UCSD and had access to personal information about students who were hired as campus tour guides.

She provided information from at least eight students to Weaver, who used the identifying data to apply for checking accounts, savings accounts and credit loans.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, he also used stolen identities to net more than $200,000 in unemployment benefit payments from California’s Employment Development Department and more than $27,000 from Arizona’s Department of Economic Security.

An indictment states he used stolen funds to buy a BMW 740i and made several other luxury purchases.

At the time of the offenses, Weaver was on probation for a similar crime in Michigan, in which prosecutors say he stole the identities of college students.

Prosecutors also allege that Weaver sent death threats via text messages to a person he believed was cooperating with law enforcement, including ones that read, “San Diego too small you won’t be able to hide forever” and “Lol so dead you don’t even know it yet.”

Weaver’s defense attorney, Jesus Mosqueda, asked for a three-year sentence, which he said would be sufficient to punish Weaver but short enough to get him back into the workplace so he could begin accumulating money to repay the victims.

During his sentencing hearing in federal court in San Diego, Weaver apologized and said: “This is one of the biggest mistakes I’ve ever made in my life. I know saying sorry won’t change what happened, but I’m willing to stand here and accept responsibility for what I did.”

U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who ultimately sentenced Weaver to 46 months in prison, asked Weaver what led him to commit the offenses.

“Instead of continuing on my path of working, I think I just started making the wrong decisions,” Weaver said. “Everything just went downhill because I was trying to provide this life that I couldn’t afford when I should have just kept working and I would have eventually got there.” ◆