Lori Deveny set for early release
A new scam targeting families of federal prisoners
Last week, a family member of disgraced Oregon attorney Lori Deveny got a phone call from someone very official sounding — either at the Federal Bureau of Prisons, or with a parole board — stating that Deveny was going to be released early, and needed a place to stay for 90 days. The ask was: Would that family member step up to the plate?
The answer was a resounding hell no, and bewilderment that Deveny had advanced their name as a possibility.
The official mentioned that the list of names he was working from were from the contacts that Deveny had provided upon entering prison, back in January 2023. The family member expressed even more surprise at that, reiterated their disinterest, and hung up.
Then they emailed me with the shocking news.
I will admit that my immediate thought was “fuck, of course they’re letting Deveny out two years into her fourteen-year sentence,” because that’s exactly how she’s been handled by the bar and law enforcement since her shit started stinking in late 2017: carried around on a velvet pillow like a spoiled poodle, lavished with treats and praise.
My second thought came nearly as quickly: that she had offered up one of her accomplices — of which there are certainly many — and the deal had freed up some prison space.
And then it occurred to me that none of this was possible or plausible — that it had to be a scam, but they got hung up on before getting to the money part.
Sure enough, a quick search for “early release prison scam” yielded a warning from the Federal Bureau of Prisons in April, cautioning of this precise scenario.¹
Additionally, the Washington, D.C. based phone number given to the family member — in case they changed their mind — came up as associated with fraud and spam. The area code was certainly spoofed.
Troublingly, this scam could have worked, had the family member been at all sympathetic to Deveny’s situation, or if it had not been so farfetched that the serial fraudster could be let free just two years into her sentence.
To confirm my suspicion, I tried calling their number. It went straight to voicemail with no outgoing message, only a beep. Despite leaving no message of my own, a man with a thick southern accent called back fifteen minutes later.
I put on my best wobbly old lady voice and stumbled through a few minutes of exposition, identifying Deveny as the prisoner I was calling about. He put me on hold so he could go gather her “file.” He didn’t seem to care who I was, so I never even had to deploy my made-up name, Jodie Caresse.
When he returned, he mentioned the “ISRP” and “RRMP” programs, which surely, I had heard about. (I had not, and neither had google.)
Finally, we got down to what this was going to cost me, a poor, big-hearted lady concerned about her old friend. The answer was vague, and he would need to pass me to his associate, but basically I would be charged “like a security deposit” for the cost of ankle monitoring — which, as we know from the state’s case, would actually have to be two ankle monitors stapled together.
At this point, I expressed my budding suspicion that this was a scam.
No, no, no, he assured me, and offered to send his LinkedIn profile, and a selfie, as if either or both of those things would confirm his story. I agreed to both and he hung up on me, but did send two links, on which I will not be clicking. I promptly filed a report with the Federal Trade Commission.
Deveny’s family member, who briefly believed this scam, told me, “I was appalled at the thought of Lori getting out already.” They also expressed shock that the scammers called her, given the circumstances.
These scammers must not be so good with the google.
¹ I could find just one news item about this federal prison scam, so consider this number two.
