False identity case ends in guilty plea

Former Bethel football player faces five years in prison without parole

? A man who assumed a friend’s identity to play football at Bethel College pleaded guilty to a federal charge of making a false statement to the Department of Education.

Lonnie N. Webster, 30, pleaded guilty Monday in U.S. District Court. He could get five years without parole when he is sentenced Feb. 10.

Webster made his plea in U.S. District Court in Wichita.

U.S. Atty. Eric Melgren said Webster admitted to using the name, Social Security number and birth date of James Odom to apply for student loans and government grants.

Webster had been charged with three counts of making a false statement on three student aid applications to the Department of Education between June 6, 1998, and July 10, 1999.

Federal authorities said Webster, arrested in Newton in July 2001, took out $50,000 in student loans under Odom’s name.

State charges of identity theft, forgery and making a false writing eventually were dismissed by the Harvey County Attorney’s Office so the case could be turned over to federal authorities.

Webster said the real James Odom, a house painter in Pensacola, Fla., who never finished high school, knew all along about the identity switch, and even helped Webster to do it.

Webster is believed to have been 21 when he assumed the identity of his friend, who was then 16. Authorities say he used that identity to attend a high school in Hawaii, where he graduated in 1996.

He was then recruited to play football at Bethel College. When he was arrested, he was a semester shy of graduation.