Jamaican Man Sentenced in $3.4 Million Lottery Fraud

Sefton Olivair Stewart, 41, was sentenced to six years in federal prison for conspiring to defraud 28 people of about $3.4 million through a fake multistate lottery scheme. From 2019 to 2024, Stewart and others falsely told victims they had won prizes and demanded fees and taxes to claim them, using counterfeit bank and government documents to make the scam appear legitimate; one victim lived in West Michigan. Stewart pleaded guilty and is expected to be removed from the United States after serving his sentence. A co-conspirator was previously sentenced to 37 months in prison for money-laundering conspiracy.