On Tuesday, Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown announced the sentencings of Cindy Thompson Boadu and Kwame Boadu of Rockville for filing fraudulent Unemployment Insurance claims during the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the news release, “In February, the defendants each pleaded guilty to one count of Theft by Deception, with a value over $100,000, one count of Conspiracy to Commit Theft by Deception with a value of over $100,000, and four counts of Identity Fraud. Senior Judge John Addison Howard of the Baltimore City Circuit Court sentenced each defendant to 10 years in prison for the theft counts, suspending all but 2 months.
Each defendant was also sentenced to 5 years, all suspended, for each identity fraud count. Judge Howard also ordered the defendants to complete 5 years of probation and pay $222,035.34 in
restitution to the Maryland Department of Labor. Judge Howard sentenced a third co-defendant, Kelvin Konadu Ntim Boadu, in February.
These convictions stem from at least 38 fraudulent unemployment claims that were filed between June and July of 2020 in the names of identity fraud victims, after the federal government
allocated billions of dollars in funding to states for residents who were suddenly unemployed after State of Emergency measures were implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic. By filing these fraudulent unemployment claims using the personal identification information for 38 individuals, Cindy Thompson Boadu and Kwame Boadu caused the Maryland Department of Labor to distribute over $500,000 in benefits onto bank debit cards. The defendants listed their own physical address on the fraudulent claims so that they could receive the debit cards and, upon receiving the debit cards, used the debit cards to spend over $200,000 of the funds for their personal benefit that was intended for unemployed residents of Maryland.
In making today’s announcement, Attorney General Brown thanked Assistant Attorneys General Alyn Pearson and Michael Palisano, and investigative auditor Amy Amy for their work on this case, as well as the Beacon team at the Division of Unemployment Insurance and the Maryland Department of Labor.”