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SAVANNAH, GA
Two Florida residents who crashed their car while fleeing from a traffic stop have been sentenced to federal prison for colluding in a scheme to steal pandemic unemployment funds.
Malik Abdul McCaully, 43, of Tampa, Fla., and Tamesha Lashelle Brown, 41, of Dade City, Fla., were sentenced to 60 months in prison after pleading guilty to Informations charging each of them with conspiring to commit various offenses, including mail fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud, disaster relief fraud, and access device fraud, said David H. Estes, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia.
U.S. District Court Judge William T. Moore Jr. also ordered each defendant to pay $137,195 in restitution to the state of Pennsylvania, and to serve three years of supervised release after completion of their prison terms.
“These two criminals used access to technology to scam money out of unemployment benefits programs created specifically to help people who were struggling during the pandemic,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Estes. “But all their high-tech scheming came to a crashing halt when they tried to outrun police officers on I-95.”
As described in court documents and proceedings, McCaully and Brown’s criminal history spanned decades. McCaully has 39 prior convictions, including convictions for cocaine trafficking, robbery, and aggravated assault with a firearm. Brown, meanwhile, has 17 prior convictions that included offenses for grand theft, delivering cocaine, and aggravated child abuse.
The two worked together to obtain victims’ personal identifying information, without those individuals’ knowledge or consent, and then used that information to file fraudulent applications for unemployment assistance, including with the State of Pennsylvania. The two posed as the applicants when communicating with banks distributing the payments.
After fraudulently obtaining bank cards preloaded with more than $130,000 in unemployment insurance funds, Brown and McCaully traveled to various ATMs in Pennsylvania, withdrawing thousands of dollars.
The two came to the attention of law enforcement in the early morning hours of October 3, 2020, when a vehicle driven by McCaully sped from an attempted traffic stop by Jasper County, S.C., sheriff’s deputies on Interstate 95.
Malik Abdul McCaully, Crime: Conspiring to commit mail fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud, disaster relief fraud, and access device fraud, State: Georgia, Year: 2020
Key Facts
- State: Georgia
- Category: Fraud & Financial Crimes
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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