In an Iowa court on Friday, a man who has been William Woods for his entire life faced a man who had been known as William Woods for much of his. The hearing brought an end to what prosecutors called “a Kafkaesque plot that resulted in the false imprisonment, involuntary hospitalization and forced medication” of the real Woods, reports the New York Times. It was the final step in the legal downfall of the impostor, whose true name is Matthew Keirans, who spent decades building a middle-class life in Woods’s name. Woods told a federal judge of his yearslong ordeal, including the time that he was “sent to jail for nothing, for being myself.” Judge C.J. Williams sentenced Keirans to 12 years in prison, saying that he had stolen Woods’s identity and “manipulated the criminal justice system to prosecute an innocent man.”
The case raised basic, painful questions about justice: What happens when your name is no longer your own? And whom does the system believe? More than five years ago, Woods stood in another courtroom. He was the defendant, and the Los Angeles County justice system did not believe he was who he said he was. Woods was held without bail on charges that he had illegally tried to gain access to bank accounts that Keirans had opened in Woods’s name. At every step, Woods insisted that he was telling the truth about his identity. At every step, the system doubted him. Woods, 56, had spent much of his adult life striving but struggling. Friendly and soft-spoken, he had often been homeless, bouncing between New Mexico and California and working as a hot dog vendor or making jewelry to get by.
Comments