Harvard Law Grad Suspected of $100 Million Scheme

John D. Cody, a Harvard Law School graduate, was arrested last Monday on charges of fraud up to $100 million over an eight-year period. He used a fake charity to collect donations from 41 states, under the pretense of helping Navy veterans, according to the Huffington Post.

When Cody was arrested, officials found that he used the fake name Bobby Thompson and signed legal papers as "Mr. X," leading authorities to become suspicious of his story. U.S. Marshal Peter J. Elliott took charge of the investigation. While searching Google for information about the suspect, Elliott found a 1987 wanted poster for a similar-looking man named John Cody, who disappeared after being accused of estate fraud and making off with around $100,000.

Because Cody was never actually arrested and only indicted, his fingerprints were not taken and did not exist in the police record, making it extremely hard to identify him. With the help of the F.B.I., Elliott eventually identified Cody by matching his fingerprints to prints found in the 1969 military database from when Cody served as a captain in the U.S. military intelligence. On March 11, 2012, Cody will face the justice system he managed to evade for so long.

"This is definitely John Donald Cody," Elliott said in at a courthouse news conference. "He's a guy that thought, number one, he could never get caught, and number two, he would never be identified. And we were able to do both."

Even though Cody went to HLS, we're not sure he'll be able to talk his way out of this one.