Tacoma court hands Jamaican man three years over US$600,000 Publishers Clearing House-style fraud

A Jamaican national has been ordered to spend three years behind bars in the United States after admitting he ran a bogus lottery scheme that stripped a 73-year-old woman in southwest Washington State of more than US$600,000.

Rashard Andra Carti, 34, learned his sentence on Thursday in the federal district court in Tacoma, according to a Friday statement from the United States Attorney’s Office. He had been sent from Jamaica to face the charges after his arrest there on 21 August 2025 and his first appearance in the Western District of Washington on 23 October 2025. He entered a guilty plea in February 2026.

Court filings say that in 2020 Carti reached the pensioner while posing as a staff member of Publishers Clearing House. He told her she had won US$22 million and a motor vehicle but had to pay taxes and other charges before she could collect anything. He also claimed Federal Bureau of Investigation agents were listening to their conversation and pressed her to keep the supposed windfall secret.

From August 2020 through February 2024 the woman was persuaded to wire more than US$600,000 to assorted cash handlers across the United States; those intermediaries then forwarded the funds to Carti in Jamaica, the records state. Prosecutors said the demands began modestly, with instructions to withdraw small sums and ship cash by courier, then escalated. Carti allegedly said earlier payments had been lost or stolen and insisted on more, urged borrowing against her dwelling, and ultimately talked her into selling the house to meet fresh “fees” tied to the imaginary prize.

United States District Judge Tiffany Cartwright noted that whenever the woman wavered or tried to pull away, Carti kept up contact through many channels. “The defendant was relentless in defrauding a vulnerable victim,” First Assistant United States Attorney Neil Floyd said in the government’s release. “At every turn when she tried to end the contact, he persisted in playing on her isolation and her fear of losing the money she had already lost. He stole the money she was counting on to survive in retirement so that he could buy luxuries and live large in Jamaica. It is despicable conduct deserving of this punishment.”

Investigators said Carti bombarded the victim with calls and texts numbering in the thousands, switched telephone numbers and messaging applications, and even dispatched trucks carrying goods, asked her landlord for welfare checks, and used other ruses to re-establish contact when she tried to break free.

“Mr Carti relentlessly and cruelly manipulated and intimidated his elderly victim to deprive her of her life savings for his own profit,” said Mike Harrington, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Seattle field office. “His lies in pursuit of her money even went so far as to abuse the trust and credibility of law enforcement by claiming the FBI was recording a call.” In the end she lost her home and received none of the promised prize money, officials said.

Authorities stressed that she was not Carti’s only target and expressed concern that he could return to fraud after serving his sentence. A sentencing memorandum cited in the release described him as relentless and skilled at deception, unlikely to be swayed by the financial ruin he left behind, and noted that once he is back in Jamaica the US probation service will have little practical oversight.