A Clackamas County jail inmate hatched a plan to raise bail money by selling a car he did not own, and it earned him two more years behind bars. Isaiah Andrew Mohr, 30, was sentenced Wednesday to 24 months in prison after being found guilty of identity theft and first-degree forgery tied to the scheme.
According to Clackamas Sheriff, Mohr devised the plan in June 2026 while jailed, targeting a car his cellmate had been driving when the cellmate was arrested and the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office impounded the vehicle. The car, it turned out, belonged to neither Mohr nor his cellmate — it was registered to a woman who had died in December 2025, according to Clackamas County. Mohr forged a bill of sale for the vehicle in an apparent bid to get it released and sold for cash he could use toward bail, since Oregon law requires defendants to post cash or a court-administered 10 percent “Security Release” deposit rather than use a commercial bail bondsman, per Clackamas County Arrests.
A Girlfriend's Forged Paperwork
Mohr conspired with Adriane Shelton, identified in a Clackamas County release as his girlfriend at the time, to carry out the plan. Shelton, 47, went to the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office and claimed she had bought the car from a man in March 2026, presenting the forged bill of sale to try to get the vehicle released. She now faces charges of forgery, identity theft, and criminal conspiracy, with a trial date not yet scheduled, according to Clackamas County.
The scheme fell apart because Clackamas County Jail records all non-attorney inmate phone calls, a policy that explicitly warns callers their conversations are monitored and admissible in court. A West Linn police detective monitored jail calls between Mohr and Shelton and ultimately alerted the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office, which then investigated the vehicle sale scheme alongside the West Linn Police Department.
Prior Record Drove the Sentence
Mohr's 24-month sentence traces back to more than just this case. He was previously sentenced in Washington County Circuit Court in December 2019 to 65 months in prison after pleading guilty to unauthorized use of a vehicle, attempting to elude police, and two counts of first-degree burglary, stemming from a stolen SUV and a law enforcement pursuit in Forest Grove, according to the Washington County District Attorney.
That history matters under Oregon's repeat property offender law, ORS 137.717, which sets mandatory presumptive prison terms of 13 to 24 months for defendants with prior felony property convictions who pick up new forgery or identity theft charges, per the Oregon Legislative Information System. Identity theft under Oregon Revised Statutes Section 165.800 is a Class C felony carrying up to five years in prison and fines as high as $125,000, according to Michael J. Buseman P.C. First-degree forgery, covered under ORS 165.013, is likewise a Class C felony punishable by up to five years when someone falsely alters or completes a legal or commercial document such as a bill of sale.
Recorded Calls as Evidence
Using recorded jail calls to build a case isn't new in Oregon. In the 2019 ruling State v. Connolly, the Oregon Court of Appeals found that criminal schemes carried out over monitored inmate telephone lines can directly support identity theft convictions, a precedent that involved an inmate using unauthorized access codes over jail phones, according to Prison Legal News. Legal calls to pre-approved defense counsel remain exempt from recording, but everything else runs through the jail's digital system.
Mohr's sentencing was handed down in Courtroom 4B before Judge Brown at 1 p.m. on August 12, according to Clackamas County Circuit Court records, with the case logged under number 26CR33022. He was arrested in April 2026, was tried in Clackamas County Circuit Court, and separately faces a trial scheduled for September 22 on mail theft and eluding police charges, according to Clackamas Sheriff. The Clackamas County Jail where Mohr was held sits on Kaen Road in Oregon City, a 434-bed facility run by the Sheriff's Office Corrections Division under Sheriff Angela Brandenburg, who began her second term in office last year.
Several questions remain open. Shelton's case has no trial date yet, and it's unclear whether the estate of the deceased car owner suffered any financial losses tied to the impoundment and the attempted fraudulent release of the vehicle.
