From the Ventura County Star:

Sentencing date set for Santa Paula man accused in Russian election meddling case Megan Diskin, Ventura County Star Published 11:01 a.m. PT July 12, 2018 Santa Paula resident Richard Pinedo pleaded guilty to identity fraud in an operation that authorities say helped Russian efforts to influence the U.S. presidential election. Sentencing has been scheduled in October for the Santa Paula man who pleaded guilty to unknowingly helping the Russians meddle in the 2016 presidential election.

Santa Paula, CA is an 80% Hispanic farm town perhaps best known for the David Spade movie Joe Dirt being filmed there.

Richard Pinedo, 28, is expected to be sentenced at 10 a.m. Oct. 1 in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, according to a court order signed July 2 by Judge Dabney L. Friedrich. Pinedo faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine in connection with his February plea, which was part of an agreement with federal prosecutors.

Richard Pinedo is a former sales associate at LA Fitness who has an Associate’s degree from Ventura Junior College in computer science, which he put to use in an identify theft business that earned him “tens of thousands of dollars.”

Putin only employs crack Mission Impossible caliber operatives, evidently.

… The Santa Paula man was swept up in the ongoing investigation led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. … Hundreds of pieces of bank account information were used, and Pinedo allegedly collected tens of thousands of dollars through the sale of the accounts. Court documents state that the sales took place from 2014 through November 2017, which coincides with Russia’s larger alleged plot.

Commenter Achilles adds:

This being 2018 there is actually an internet site where customers of Ricky Pinedo’s “auction essistance” fake bank accounts posted reviews of Ricky’s performance for prospective customers to read. https://www.sitejabber.com/reviews/auctionessistance.com Ricky actually gets better reviews than his main competitor, openvcc, where reviewers seem justifiably angered that it is a complete scam and that the only positive reviews are probably by the guy selling the fake bank accounts. Had poor Ricky not found himself in the path of the GET TRUMP steamroller he likely could have continued on for quite some time supplying fake bank accounts to those in need of getting access to PayPal and online auction sites such as illegals or jihadis or cartel runners or people with bank violations that cannot get a bank to open an account for them.

[Comment at Unz.com]