A former IT employee at the University of Iowa Hospital faces a lengthy prison sentence after pleading guilty to federal charges of living under a false identity for more than three decades.
Matthew David Keirans, 58, faces up to 30 years in prison following his conviction on charges of making false statements to an institution insured by the National Credit Union Administration, a federal crime. He was also convicted April 1 of aggravated identity theft, for which he faces two additional years in prison.
The audacious crime led to another man, William Donald Woods, being wrongly convicted for identity theft and sent away to a mental hospital after a judge ruled he wasn’t who he said he was.
Keirans is currently in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service, while a sentencing date has yet to be scheduled, the Iowa Gazette reported.
Keirans was employed for a decade as a systems analyst in the hospital’s technology department, working there from June 28, 2013, to July 20, 2023, before he was fired for misconduct related to an investigation into identity theft.
Previously, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Iowa described Keirans as an administrator at the hospital, but the hospital has since clarified that he was not a senior leader during his time with the healthcare company.
When he took the job, Keirans gave his new employer the name William Donald Woods, an alias he had been using since 1988 — the year he met the real William Woods in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
At the time, the two men formed a partnership running a small hot dog stand.
Before long, Keirans began pretending to be Woods, taking jobs, purchasing insurance, signing official papers, and even filing his taxes with the man’s name, according to the plea agreement that Keirans signed last week.
In 1990, two years after befriending Woods, Keirans traveled to Colorado and got a fake ID with his photo, but with Woods’ name and…
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