A Kenyan national who used to live in Worcester was sentenced yesterday in U.S. District Court to 81 months in prison for being part of a scheme to secure more than $600,000 in unemployment benefits.
From about March 2006 through June 2008, the defendant, Peter Mwangi, 35, formerly of 2 Delldale St., registered 11 fictitious employers with the Massachusetts Division of Unemployment Assistance and filed hundreds of fraudulent claims in the names of supposed former employees of these businesses, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Sandra S. Bower. He used his own identity as well as identities of other people, living and dead, to make the claims.
The state mailed benefit checks to numerous addresses that Mr. Mwangi controlled. He cashed the checks or deposited them into bank accounts, receiving $612,913 in bogus unemployment benefits over two years.
In June 2007, the defendant applied for and received a U.S. passport using another man’s name, Social Security number, birth date and other information. The passport bearing Mr. Mwangi’s photo but the other man’s information was seized in September 2008 in a search of Mr. Mwangi’s storage unit in Webster.
Mr. Mwangi, who previously had been ordered removed from the country, was taken into administrative custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in June 2008. Yesterday, he was sentenced by U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV to 36 months of supervision upon release from his sentence of 6 years and 9 months.
Mr. Mwangi was ordered to pay a $10,000 fine and full restitution. He pleaded guilty in December to three counts of mail fraud, passport fraud and aggravated identity theft.
Comentários