Former UI employee who stole man’s identity 35 years ago will be sentenced in October

CEDAR RAPIDS — A former University of Iowa IT systems lead, who stole a California man’s identity 35 years ago, which eventually led to the victim being committed to a mental hospital because nobody believed he was the real “Bill,” will be sentenced Oct. 25 in federal court.

Matthew David Keirans, 58, of Hartland, Wis., was convicted in April in U.S. District Court of one count of a false statement to a credit union and aggravated identity theft. He faces up to 32 years in prison.

According to a plea agreement, Keirans stole the identity of William “Bill” Donald Woods, 55, of California, a homeless man who has been in and out of jail and ended up being committed to a mental hospital because he repeatedly reported that his identity had been stolen in 1988 when Keirans worked with Woods at a hot dog cart in Albuquerque, N.M.

University of Iowa Police Detective Ian Mallory, who was determined to unravel which man was credible and who was the real “California Bill,” as Mallory dubbed him, in this stranger-than-fiction identity theft case that has spanned more than three decades.

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Mallory told The Gazette, after Keirans was charged, it took him about a year of digging and investigative work to reveal the truth. He combed through hundreds of police and government documents from Wisconsin, California, Idaho, Colorado, Oregon, Kentucky and Iowa to investigate both men’s backgrounds and criminal histories.

Mallory, who received an award for his work on the case from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which is prosecuting the case, said the investigation showed Keirans took over Woods’ life, stealing his identity to acquire loans, credit and jobs. He even had a son under Woods’ name.

The investigation

When the real Woods discovered someone was racking up $130,000 in debt under his name, he reported it to bank officials and wanted to close his account, but it resulted in Woods being arrested in 2019 and convicted in 2021 — serving 428 days in jail and 147 days in a mental hospital.

Woods pleaded “no contest” in exchange for time served and was released. But a judge ordered him to go by his “true name, Matthew Keirans.”

Over the years, Woods made numerous attempts to regain his identity, even contacting local police where Keirans was living in Hartland, Wis But Keirans again told investigators he was the real Woods and the victim of identity fraud.

In January 2023, when Woods learned Keirans was working remotely from Wisconsin for UI Hospitals in its information technology department, earning more than $100,000 a year, he reported Keirans to the hospital’s security department, and his complaint was referred to the UI Police Department.

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Mallory admitted he didn’t know what to believe, but the “facts of the case don’t lie” and he couldn’t dismiss anything, especially a victim who had been “completely wronged, wrongfully accused and prosecuted and ordered (by a judge) to live under another name.”

Mallory said his efforts started paying off in May and June 2023, and he held the final key to the truth — two buccal swabs containing DNA.

He obtained DNA from Woods’ father in March and then from “California Bill” Woods in May 2023. The results proved Woods was who he had been telling bank, police, court and other government officials for 35 years.

With the results in hand, Mallory went back for his second interview with Keirans in July 2023. Mallory asked Keirans his father’s name, and Keirans accidentally gave the first name of his own adoptive father. Mallory then told Keirans the results of the DNA evidence, and Keirans said “‘my life is over”’ and “‘everything is gone.’”

Keirans admitted he had used Ancestry.com in 2012 to obtain Woods’ birth certificate.

Comments: (319) 398-8318; trish.mehaffey@thegazette.com