GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- A man who swapped fake diamonds for real as a customer at several jewelry stores has been sentenced to prison.
Demetrius Eugene Woodson, 28, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Kalamazoo to two years in federal prison and ordered to repay more than $89,000 in restitution.
Woodson and another man, Rosean Levell Rogers, took pat in the scheme that involved jewelry stores in Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois and New Jersey.
Police said Woodson would swap cubic zirconia diamonds for real diamonds while store clerks were distracted. All of the targets were Jared jewelry stores and, according to a federal indictment, Woodson and Rogers were successful on seven occasions.
Police eventually caught them after they went to a Byron Center area jewelry store. Earlier the same day, they pried open a display case at a Jared store in Kentwood and took $7,000 worth of diamonds, according to information in a federal indictment.
Woodson already is serving a prison term of 3 1/2 to 10 years in prison for witness retaliation. He was sentenced in early May in Kent County Circuit Court for making threats against a Kentwood police detective in a jail phone conversation to a third party.
Rogers, considered less culpable in the jewelry scheme, was sentenced Friday to “time served,” two years of supervised release and about $15,000 in restitution.