SAND SPRINGS – A woman involved in a multi-state counterfeit check scheme was sentenced in federal court on July 14 to four years imprisonment and three years of supervised release.
In 2020 Sarai Jamila Nyasha Freeman, 41, of Aurora, Colorado, used a deceased person’s identity to pass off two counterfeit U.S. Treasury checks totaling nearly $3,000 at a retail location in Sand Springs. Now, after years on the run and two missed court dates, she’s headed to federal prison.
Freeman was sentenced this week to four years in federal prison for her role in a cross-state counterfeit scheme that hit Sand Springs directly. The sentence follows her March 2025 conviction by a federal jury on charges including identity theft, passing counterfeit checks, and failing to appear for trial.
According to federal investigators, Freeman came to Sand Springs in 2020 and cashed two fake U.S. Treasury checks using the stolen identity of a deceased individual—one of the more brazen moves in a multi-state scam that spanned Louisiana to Colorado. The fraudulent transactions totaled $2,826.
After Freeman’s initial arrest, she failed to show up for her trial not once, but twice—once in state court and again after being given a plane ticket to travel for her federal trial. Her second disappearance ended when the U.S. Marshal Service found and arrested her in Colorado.
U.S. District Judge Gregory K. Frizzell sentenced Freeman to 48 months in federal prison, followed by three years of supervised release, and ordered her to repay the $2,826 lost to the Sand Springs business. She remains in custody and will be transferred to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.
The investigation was led by the U.S. Department of the Treasury Office of Inspector General, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, and Wal-Mart Global Investigations. Assistant U.S. Attorneys David D. Whipple and Charles Greenough prosecuted the case.