Keirans' ID theft crimes began in December 1990 when he got an ID card, opened a bank account and landed a fast-food job in Colorado, using Woods' ID. He also used two phony checks to buy a car, which he later abandoned when it broke down.

Eventually, Keirans made his way to Wisconsin and landed a high-level, six-figure job at Iowa City's University of Iowa Hospital and Clinic in 2013. According to court documents, he passed the hospital's background checks using Woods' ID.

From March 2014 to May 2022, Keirans, again using Woods' ID, got seven car loans and a personal loan from the $3.2 billion Dupaco Community Credit Union in Dubuque and another Iowa credit union, not identified in court documents. The loans collectively totaled more than $250,000, court documents showed.

During the summer of 2019, Woods was a homeless transient who learned someone was using his credit and racked up large amounts of debt. At a Los Angeles bank branch, Woods told the assistant manager that he did not want to pay the $130,000 debt and wanted to close his accounts. Keirans, who was living in Hartland, Wis., maintained an account at that Los Angeles bank under Woods' identity.

The assistant branch manager, however, became suspicious when Woods was unable to answer security questions after he requested the full account numbers so he could close them. After Keirans confirmed with Los Angeles police investigators that no one else named Woods had the authority to access his bank account, Woods was charged and convicted of ID Theft. He spent 428 days in prison and 147 days in a mental hospital, and was ordered to pay $400 in fines and special assessments, according to court documents.

Ironically, Los Angeles police apparently mistakenly concluded Woods was Matthew Keirans because prosecutors used this name to charge Woods with ID theft crimes.

In January 2023, the University of Iowa Police Department (UIPD) received a report filed by Woods that accused Keirans of stealing his identity. During an investigation, police discovered that the man who claimed for 33 years that he was William Donald Woods of Hartland, Wis., was actually Matthew David Keirans. The UIPD also confirmed the identity of William Donald Woods in California through DNA testing.

By July, Keirans was arrested on fraudulent document charges and admitted to his ID theft crimes, which landed Woods in prison.

A criminal complaint filed by a federal investigator in August 2023 showed that Keirans, using Woods' ID, was approved for several loans at Dupaco Community. But police may have later discovered that Keirans, using Woods' ID, also received loans from another credit union in Waterloo, which was not identified, according to a March 2024 prosecutor's memo document. Keirans signed that document admitting he committed his crimes and agreed to plead guilty.

He is expected to remain in federal custody until his sentencing hearing, which has not been scheduled.