Bradenton man sentenced for role in $250,000 ‘Elon Musk’ scam, prosecutors say
A Bradenton man who helped scammers posing as Elon Musk steal $250,000 from a Texas woman is heading to prison, according to court records.
A Manatee County judge sentenced 57-year-old Jeffrey Arthur Moynihan Jr. to one year in state prison followed by 28 years of probation, court records show. Circuit Judge Matt Whyte also ordered him to repay $250,000 in restitution and complete a theft-offender course as part of his probation.
An attorney representing Moynihan did not immediately respond to the Bradenton Herald’s request for comment.
Moynihan pleaded no contest Oct. 15 to one count of money laundering of $100,000 or more, according to the records. Prosecutors dropped a related grand theft charge that same day because they could not prove Moynihan intended for a theft to occur, Assistant State Attorney Justin Foster said.
According to Foster, Moynihan became a “money mule” after falling victim to a romance scam. Prosecutors said he met a woman online who claimed to be in the military and stationed overseas. Over the course of a year, she convinced him to let her send money to his personal and business accounts so he could disperse it for her.
According to the FBI, scammers often use money mules to move illegally obtained money. Money mules are people who transfer funds on behalf of others, sometimes without realizing the money is stolen. Those intermediaries help criminals hide stolen money through bank accounts or cryptocurrency, making it difficult for law enforcement to trace.
Bradenton man sentenced in ‘Elon Musk’ scam
In Moynihan’s case, a Bradenton detective later confirmed his account by tracking down the real woman whose photos had been used in the scam, according to prosecutors. She was a former member of the U.S. military who had previously reported that someone had stolen her images online to create a fake identity.
“Though a reasonable person would have recognized the money was tied to illegal activity, Moynihan claimed he believed he was helping his girlfriend,” said Foster, who served as lead prosecutor in the case.
Investigators say they later determined the person communicating with Moynihan was part of an organized scam network overseas.
Around the same time, a 74-year-old woman in Texas began communicating on Facebook with someone pretending to be Elon Musk, according to police. Musk, CEO of large companies such as Tesla and X, is one of the richest people in the world.
The scammer built the Texas woman’s trust over several months and convinced her to invest $250,000 in what she believed were Musk’s business ventures, police said. Investigators later traced that money to accounts controlled by Moynihan, who transferred portions to others and converted the rest into cryptocurrency.
Foster said Moynihan may have personally profited between $15,000 and $20,000, but most of the money was transferred to other accounts or converted into cryptocurrency at the scammers’ direction.
Internet scams becoming more common, police say
Bradenton police arrested Moynihan in November 2024 on grand theft and money-laundering charges. Investigators traced the scammer posing as Elon Musk to IP addresses in Nigeria, according to police.
Foster said many similar operations are based in call centers in Nigeria and Ghana, where scammers move stolen money through intermediaries or convert it to cryptocurrency, making recovery nearly impossible. He said investigators are seeing an increasing number of cases where scammers recruit unwitting intermediaries to move stolen money, part of a growing trend of international fraud schemes that target Americans online.
Prosecutors said money laundering was the appropriate charge for Moynihan’s conduct because it holds him accountable for moving and concealing stolen money, even if he was unaware of the original scam.
“Because Moynihan laundered the money, he is responsible for paying it back to the victims,” Foster said. “Because he played no role in the actual scam perpetrated on the victims, he received a lighter sentence than he would have had he been in on it.”
The Bradenton Police Department’s Elder Fraud Unit led the investigation. Police said the unit has investigated cases involving residents aged 60 and older that resulted in nearly $3 million in local losses this year.
