He Went to Jail for Stealing Someone’s Identity. But It Was His All Along.

U.S.|He Went to Jail for Stealing Someone’s Identity. But It Was His All Along.

In a beige-walled courtroom in eastern Iowa, 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.

That hearing on Friday brought an end to what prosecutors called “a Kafkaesque plot that resulted in the false imprisonment, involuntary hospitalization and forced medication” of the real Mr. Woods. And it was the final step in the legal downfall of the impostor, whose true name is Matthew Keirans, and who spent decades building a middle-class life in Mr. Woods’s name before the truth began to unspool.

Seated at a table some 15 feet from Mr. Keirans, Mr. Woods told a federal judge of his yearslong ordeal, including the time that he was “sent to jail for nothing, for being myself.” A few minutes later, the judge, C.J. Williams, sentenced Mr. Keirans to 12 years in prison, saying that he had stolen Mr. Woods’s identity and “manipulated the criminal justice system to prosecute an innocent man.”

“What the victim was deprived of here was priceless,” Judge Williams said. “It’s freedom.”

It was a case that raised basic, painful questions about justice: What happens when your name is no longer your own? And whom does the system believe?

‘That’s Me’

More than five years ago, William Woods stood in another courtroom. He was the defendant, and the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office did not believe he was who he said he was. Prosecutors believed he was Mr. Keirans.