A fraudster who has such a shady background, prosecutors referred to him as John Doe, was sentenced on Nov. 13 to 4 ½ to 9 years in prison for stealing homes from property owners in Queens Village, Jamaica Estates and Kew Gardens Hills. The defendant was arrested in March under the name Carl Avinger for his role in an ongoing deed fraud scheme.
News of the case, which generated media coverage, reached the real Carl Avinger in Tennessee, and the identity theft victim came forward to the Queens District Attorney’s Office.
Doe, whose actual identity and home address remain unverified, having used at least a half-dozen aliases, pleaded guilty in August to identity theft in the first degree, and other related crimes.
“Justice should not be avoided by taking other people’s identities,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said. “In fact, taking someone’s identity for certain benefits is itself a crime.”
Doe was arrested in March 2025 after he was indicted along with three co-defendants in the deed theft scheme. At the time of his arrest, the defendant submitted identification, which also contained his photograph identifying him as Carl Avinger, with the “real” Carl Avinger’s date of birth.
An investigation revealed that on Nov. 13, 2024, the defendant submitted an application to the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles to renew his driver’s license. The application, which was signed by “Carl Avinger,” contained an updated address on 205th Street in St. Albans. The license was later issued and mailed to that address. The defendant’s identity theft came to light after the deed fraud scheme was reported and seen by the complainant, Carl Edward Avinger, in Tennessee, who reported to authorities that the defendant, whom he knew as “Ace,” resided with him in 2003 in North Carolina. During that time, Avinger’s identification card and Social Security card went missing. Avinger’s sister also identified the defendant as “Ace.”
Further investigation revealed that the defendant had been arrested a dozen times between May 22, 1993, and March 18, 2025, resulting in three felony convictions and a half-dozen misdemeanor convictions in New York. The defendant has numerous aliases and dates of birth for each arrest, including John Stamp, Bobby Jackson, Craig Taylor, Carl E. Avinger, Anthony S. Williams, Kevin C. Windley and Corey Blake Duncan.
“We did not give up investigating until we were able to provide justice to the actual Carl Avinger in addition to holding the man using his identity of numerous people to enrich his life by conducting various schemes,” Katz said. “After we announced our indictment of ‘Carl Avinger’ earlier this year, news reports reached the actual Carl Avinger. My office was contacted by Avinger family members, and we immediately launched an investigation into this defendant’s identity.”
Queens Supreme Court Justice Jerry Iannece sentenced him on Oct. 1 to 3 ½ to seven years in prison. He also pleaded guilty on Oct. 8 before Queens Supreme Court Justice Leigh Cheng to grand larceny in the first degree and two counts of grand larceny in the second degree in connection with the deed fraud scheme. He was sentenced on Nov. 13 to 4 ½ to nine years in prison on the first-degree count and to four to eight years on the second-degree counts, all to run concurrently with the sentence imposed on Oct. 1.
One of Doe’s co-defendants in the deed fraud scheme, Torey Guice, of Roselle, NJ, pleaded guilty on Oct. 7 to falsifying business records and was sentenced by Judge Cheng to a one-year conditional discharge and must consent to void the fraudulent deed for which he was charged. Co-defendant Autumn Valeri, of Commack, pleaded guilty on Oct. 8 to three counts of grand larceny and was sentenced on Nov. 5 by Judge Cheng to five years’ probation and must surrender her real estate license and consent to the deeds of the stolen property being voided. Co-defendant Lawrence Ray, of 127th Avenue in Jamaica, pleaded guilty on Oct. 16 to scheme to defraud in the first degree, with a recommended sentence on Nov. 20 of five years of probation and forfeiture of $403,829.22. He must also consent to the deeds of the stolen property being voided.
At the time of Doe’s and Valeri’s pleas, Judge Cheng signed an order to void the fraudulent deed on one of the three properties. The other two properties had already been transferred to third parties. The DA’s office will utilize New York State Criminal Procedure Law 420.05 to void those fraudulent deeds. This will be the sixth time the DA’s office, which was first to employ this statute in 2023, has used it to have the court declare void fraudulent deeds post-conviction.
“I thank my Housing and Worker Protection Bureau for this painstaking investigation into this case, unraveling of the deed fraud scheme and holding the wrongdoers accountable,” Katz said. She also thanked the NYPD Financial Crimes Task Force, the U.S. Department of State and the Office of the Inspector General of the Social Security Administration for their assistance in the investigation.
