Georgia – Three people from Georgia have been sentenced to prison for running a complicated fraud that stole at least $30 million in unemployment benefits during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Federal prosecutors say the three used stolen identities and fake employer accounts to file thousands of fake claims against the Georgia Department of Labor.
In U.S. District Court, 31-year-old Macovian Doston from Vienna got the most severe punishment: 15 years in prison and then three years of supervised release. Doston will also have to pay back a certain amount of money in restitution, which is yet to be finalized. Shatara Hubbard, 36, of Warner Robins, was sentenced to six years in federal prison for being his partner in crime. A third person involved in the plot, 33-year-old Torella Wynn from Cordele, will spend a year in jail. The court will also impose restitution orders for Hubbard and Wynn at a later date.
Court documents say that the fraud went on from March 2020 to November 2022. During that time, the group filed more than 5,000 fake claims for unemployment benefits. They made fake employer accounts and then pretended to be employees by using personal information they bought on the dark web or that had been leaked from business systems. In one case, people who were part of the conspiracy are said to have gotten identifying information from a hospital network through a paid insider.
After a claim was approved, benefits were put on prepaid debit cards and sent to several drop-off addresses around the state. At trial, evidence indicated that Doston and his co-conspirators filed their claims in waves, making sure that funds kept coming in continuously over the course of two and a half years.
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Several government authorities worked together to break up the plot. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General was in charge of the investigation, working with the IRS Criminal Investigation, the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General, and Homeland Security Investigations. The Department of Justice’s COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force is in charge of this investigation. This group was formed in 2021 to find and stop frauds related to the pandemic benefits.
Four other people connected to the ring have already been sentenced, in addition to the three main ones. Depending on how involved they were and how much money they made, their sentences ranged from 18 months to 12 years in prison. Officials are confident that these convictions show that they remain committed to protecting federal aid money and penalizing those who abuse it.
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The court made it quite clear with these penalties that taking advantage of emergency assistance programs has serious implications. As investigations into the pandemic continue, prosecutors promise to go against these types of frauds making sure that aid goes to the people who need it most.
