United States v. Matthew Keirans

── United States v. Matthew Keirans ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit Date: April 23, 2026 Category: General United States Court of Appeals For the Eighth Circuit ___________________________ No. 25-1339 ___________________________ United States of America Plaintiff - Appellee v. Matthew David Keirans, also known as William Donald Woods, also known as William D. Woods Defendant - Appellant ____________ Appeal from United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa - Eastern ____________ Submitted: March 16, 2026 Filed: April 23, 2026 ____________ Before COLLOTON, Chief Judge, GRUENDER and KOBES, Circuit Judges. ____________ GRUENDER, Circuit Judge. By all appearances, a man who went by the name William Woods had turned his life around. Three decades ago, he was homeless and worked at a hotdog cart. But then the man got married and had a child. He opened up bank accounts, received credit lines, and started working at a hospital, where he became “the key administrator of critical systems” and earned more than $100,000 per year. There was just one problem: Although William Woods is a real person, the man is not that person. Instead, the man’s name is Matthew Keirans. Keirans met the real Woods in the late 1980s; Woods was Keirans’s coworker at the hotdog cart. From then on, Keirans used Woods’s identity in virtually every aspect of his life. Keirans obtained employment, insurance, a social security card, driver’s licenses, titles, loans, and credit using Woods’s identity. Keirans paid taxes under Woods’s identity. When Keirans stole a car, authorities issued an arrest warrant in Woods’s name, and when Keirans stole another car, authorities arrested and booked him under Woods’s name. Although Keirans got married, his wife did not know his real name, and their child bore Woods’s surname. Keirans obtained his job at the hospital by using fictitious identification documents, all in Woods’s name. While employed at the hospital, Keirans continued obtaining credit union loans, using Woods’s actual social security number and date of birth. And then Woods intervened. In August 2019, Woods, then homeless and transient, entered a bank branch in California and informed the assistant branch manager that someone, using his identity, had obtained lines of credit and accumulated a large amount of debt. Woods provided his social security card, whose number matched the social security number associated with Keirans’s fraudulent accounts at that bank. However, upon reviewing the accounts’ information, the assistant branch manager noted that the address associated with the account was not a California address, but a Wisconsin address—Keirans’s address. And when the assistant branch manager asked Woods several security questions, he was unable to answer them correctly. Concerned, the assistant branch manager called the telephone number associated with the fraudulent accounts. Keirans answered. Keirans instructed that no one in California should have access to the bank accounts. After Keirans correctly answered the assistant branch manager’s security questions, the assistant branch manager called the police. Police officers spoke with Keirans over the phone, who told them that he did not give anyone in California -2- access to his bank accounts. Keirans then faxed the officers copies of a social security card, driver’s license, and birth certificate—all stating that his name was William Woods. And so it was Woods—not Keirans—who the police arrested for identity theft.