2 Lexington County gold buyers get 16 months in prison in cryptocurrency romance scam

Two Lexington County men were each sentenced to 16 months in federal prison on Tuesday for being part of a multi-state fraud involving cryptocurrency, social media romances and misusing legitimate third-party businesses email accounts.

Kenneth Brown Jr., 45, and Nicholas Shepard, 46, who operate an Irmo gold and other precious metals exchange, were sentenced by U.S. Judge Joseph Anderson in two separate hearings in Columbia. Each had pled guilty last year to a charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and mail fraud. The men are brothers-in-law.

The two operate the Golden Eagle Precious Metals Exchange, an enterprise that specializes in receiving gold and other precious metals from customers in exchange for cash. Customers could also convert cash into cryptocurrency.

The crime carried a maximum 20 years in prison sentence but they received a substantial break because they had no prior criminal record, they were low-level participants in the scheme and each had agreed to go to Texas to testify in an ongoing federal criminal case against the remaining criminal defendant in the case.

Although the two men were low-ranking members of the conspiracy, “I don’t think the scheme works without” them, Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Matthews told Judge Anderson.

A charging document in the case, called an information, said the scheme involved illegal transfers of hundreds of thousands of dollars to Golden Eagle from various victims.

One group of victims included people in an alleged romance scam who sent their own money to Golden Eagle or money they received from businesses whose assets had been compromised, the information said. Most victims were elderly.

Matthews said the two men knew from the start that they were likely involved in a crooked scheme because an undercover agent approached them with $50,000 to process and told them the money came from a motor vehicle fraud.

State Rep. Micajah “Micah” Caskey IV, an attorney who represented Shepard, told Anderson that although his client knew something was wrong, he was led into the conspiracy in a “grooming” process by another member of the conspiracy, Gregory Nysewander.

Brown and Shepard figured into the cash and crypto part of the scheme, and they were not part of the romance fraud, according to evidence in the case.

Nysewander, now deceased, had formerly lived in Irmo, and was indicted in 2022 by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Texas on charges of money laundering conspiracy, money laundering, and a conspiracy to violate the Bank Secrecy Act, according to court records. He was never tried.

Caskey told the judge that although the two men owed restitution to victims totaling $415,196, their profit from the venture was only $12,455. “That is what their benefit in this scheme was,” said Caskey.

Brown and Shepard have repaid all the restitution but about $83,000.

Shepard told the judge, “I am genuinely sorry to everyone who got hurt by this.”

Lester “Gill” Bell, the attorney who represented Brown, said in an email that his client “has been remorseful since this first happened and reiterated how sorry he was during the sentencing hearing.”

“To say he has learned his lesson is a gross understatement,” Caskey told the judge.

Anderson said sentencing the two men posed its own problem because they were otherwise law-abiding. “But I consider it (the crime) serious, even though it was non-violent.”

The case was investigated by the U.S. Secret Service, the United States Postal Inspection Service, the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department, and the Richland County Sheriff’s Department. Federal prosecutor Winston Holliday also worked the case.

This story was originally published February 25, 2025 at 4:56 PM.