U.S. District Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby sentenced Isiah Lewis, 35, of Prince George’s County, Maryland, to 53 months of imprisonment for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, in connection with a conspiracy and scheme to defraud the Maryland Department of Labor (MD-DOL) and California Employment Development Department (CA-EDD).
Kelly O. Hayes, U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland, announced the sentence with Special Agent in Charge Troy W. Springer, National Capital Region, U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General (DOL-OIG), and Special Agent in Charge Kareem A. Carter, Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI), Washington, D.C. Field Office.
According to the guilty plea, from at least June 2020 through March 2021, Lewis conspired with Michael Cooley, Jr., 26, of Prince George’s County, Maryland, and Alonzo Brown, 28, of Richmond, Virginia, to devise and execute a scheme to defraud victim individuals and multiple state workforce agencies, including in Maryland and California, of more than $800,000 in unemployment insurance benefits, and successfully obtained more than $300,000. Griggsby previously sentenced Cooley and Brown to 87 months and 45 months, respectively.
Through the sophisticated scheme, co-conspirators used the personal identifiable information of more than 60 individuals, such as name, date of birth, and social security number, to file online UI applications in Maryland and California, using anonymous email addresses to obscure their identities and avoid detection.
At sentencing, Judge Griggsby ordered Lewis to pay restitution of $310,428.08 to the crime victims in the case and to forfeit money, property, and/or assets derived from the scheme.
This case is part of the District of Maryland COVID-19 Strike Force, a Strike Force that is one of five strike forces established throughout the United States by the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute COVID-19 fraud, including fraud relating to the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. The CARES Act was designed to provide emergency financial assistance to Americans suffering the economic effects caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The strike forces focus on large-scale, multi-state pandemic relief fraud perpetrated by criminal organizations and transnational actors. The strike forces are interagency law enforcement efforts, using prosecutor-led and data analyst-driven teams designed to identify and bring to justice those who stole pandemic relief funds.
For more information about the Department’s response to the pandemic, please visit https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus. Anyone with information about allegations of attempted fraud involving COVID-19 can report it by calling the Department of Justice’s National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) Hotline at 866-720-5721 or via the NCDF Web Complaint Form at https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form.
U.S. Attorney Hayes commended DOL-OIG and IRS-CI for their work in the investigation. Ms. Hayes also thanked Assistant U.S. Attorneys Bijon A. Mostoufi and Jared M. Beim, who prosecuted the federal case, along with Joanna B.N. Huber, who supported the case.
