Orange County District Attorney David M. Hoovler, joined by Sheriff Carl DuBois, today announced that seventeen defendants have been charged with felonies including Welfare Fraud and Grand Larceny for illegally obtaining over $171,000 in public assistance benefits administered through the Orange County Department of Social Services and the New York State Department of Labor.

The enforcement action was the result of the collaborative efforts of the Orange County Department of Social Services Special Investigations Unit (SIU), the Sheriff’s Office, and the District Attorney’s Office. During the investigation of the cases, civil investigators of the SIU reviewed files of twelve public assistance benefit recipients suspected of fraud, interviewed those recipients, and forwarded cases to the District Attorney’s Office for further investigation. Investigators from the District Attorney’s Office and the Sheriff’s Office interviewed many of the recipients before filing charges against them. Five additional defendants were charged by the New York State Police and the District Attorney’s Office for stealing unemployment benefits. The total amount allegedly stolen from the Orange County Department of Social Services in this enforcement action is $89,649.40. The total amount stolen by fraudulent unemployment insurance benefits claims was $81,468.92, all of which has been repaid by the defendants that were charged.

This public benefits fraud enforcement action is the sixth one since District Attorney Hoovler took office. To date, 152 individuals have been charged with Welfare Fraud as a result of those enforcement actions. The total dollar amount of fraud involved in those cases is $1,637,622.89. To date, the County has been repaid approximately $460,614.74 by criminal defendants who were charged in the enforcement actions.

Since the actions began in June 2014, the Department of Social Services has also collected $209,488.77 from recipients who voluntarily paid back benefits that they received but were not entitled to. Those recipients repaid those funds after being contacted by the Department of Social Services civil investigators, without any additional arrest or prosecutorial action by the Sheriff’s Office or the District Attorney’s Office. By comparison, in the three years prior to the first enforcement action, the Department of Social Services civil investigators only collected $48,165.061 from similarly situated recipients. In 2011, 2012, and 2013, only $12,127.31 was recovered as a result of welfare fraud prosecutions, and only four defendants were charged. Three prosecutions were brought in 2011, one was brought in 2012, and no prosecutions were brought in 2013 against those who defrauded the Orange County Department of Social Services.

The estimate savings realized by the enforcement actions since District Attorney Hoovler took office is $1,507,944. That figure represents the amount of money that public benefits programs administered by the Orange County Department of Social Services would have paid out to those fraudulently obtaining benefits if the enforcement actions had not taken place.

The public benefits fraud enforcement actions represent only a portion of the fraudulently obtained public monies that District Attorney Hoovler’s Office has recovered since he took office in 2014. In 2014, the District Attorney’s Office for the first time received a grant under the New York State Crimes Against Revenue Program (CARP). Funding under that grant pays the salary of an Assistant District Attorney who focuses on prosecuting the theft of public monies, such as Medicaid funds, sales and withholding taxes, and fraudulently obtained worker’s compensation benefits. On August 31, 2016, a report issued by the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) stated that in the first half of 2016, Orange County’s CARP effort recovered more than $1.2 million in state funds that had been fraudulently taken.

Orange County’s numbers are remarkable. Under CARP, DCJS provides the Orange County District Attorney’s Office with a yearly $89,000 grant to partially fund the salary and benefits of one experienced assistant district attorney. The $1.2 million recovered represents a more than thirteen-fold return on the State’s investment in Orange County’s CARP effort. In addition, of the 30 counties in New York that currently have CARP initiatives, Orange County’s program outperformed every other county that quarter, except for New York County (Manhattan), including four of the counties in New York City, and six much larger counties upstate and on Long Island. Orange County’s CARP recovery alone represented more than 43% of the funds recovered by the 25 participating upstate and Long Island CARP counties.

Christopher Perez, 38, of Campbell Hall, pleaded guilty on November 1, 2016 to Grand Larceny in the Fourth Degree for having stolen $39,978.15, in unemployment insurance benefits to which he was not entitled. He is scheduled to be sentenced on January 26, 2017. Four additional defendants, who had all been charged with Grand Larceny for having collected unemployment benefits to which they were not entitled, similarly paid back all the improper benefits that they received. Based on their lack of criminal history and the individual circumstances surrounding their cases those defendants were each allowed to plead guilty to non-criminal offenses after repaying back all of the improperly received benefits. District Attorney Hoovler thanked the New York State Police for their investigation and arrest of the five defendants charged in connection with improperly received unemployment benefits.

The cases against all nine of the defendants arrested and charged with Welfare Fraud for having stolen monies from public benefits programs administered by the Orange County Department of Social Services are still pending as felonies. The Orange County District Attorney’s Office and Orange County Sheriff’s Office are asking the public’s help in locating three defendants against whom charges have been filed, but who have not yet been apprehended.

Defendants arrested in the most recent enforcement action include:

NAME	TOTAL AMOUNT	BENEFIT	AGE	ARREST CHARGES	PLACE OF RESIDENCE
Rita DeLaurencio	$1,848.00	SNAP	55	Welfare Fraud 4th Grand Larceny 4th	Newburgh
Elyse Gonzalez	$7,840	SNAP	31	Welfare Fraud 3rd Grand Larceny 3rd	Middletown
Jennifer Goodwin	$1,338	SNAP	30	Welfare Fraud 4th Grand Larceny 4th	New Hampton
Herbert McMillian	$2,182	SNAP and Temporary Assistance	53	Welfare Fraud 4th Grand Larceny 4th	Newburgh
Gina Martin	$2,672.00	SNAP	33	Welfare Fraud 4th Grand Larceny 4th	Newburgh
Shavvel Paul	$5,922.00	SNAP	41	Welfare Fraud 3rd Grand Larceny 3rd	Newburgh
Ivania Vallar-Colon	$8,129.00	SNAP	30	Welfare Fraud 3rd Grand Larceny 3rd	Newburgh
Wendy Vidal	$9,628.00	SNAP	42	Welfare Fraud 3rd Grand Larceny 3rd	Newburgh
Elizabeth Mansueto	$4,227.75	Child Care Benifits	29	Welfare Fraud 3rd Grand Larceny 3rd	Middletown
Christopher Perez	$39,978.15	Unemployment Benefits	38	Grand Larceny 3rd and Offering a False Instrument for Filing 1st	Newburgh

 

The District Attorney’s Office and Orange County Sheriff’s Office are asking for the public’s help in locating the following defendants who are currently wanted on arrest warrants:

NAME	TOTAL AMOUNT	BENEFIT	AGE	ARREST CHARGES	PLACE OF RESIDENCE
Ursula Berry	$5,816.37	Public Assistance Financial Support Child Care	36	Welfare Fraud 3rd Grand Larceny 3rd	Middletown
Francheska Laracuente	$36,480.28	SNAP and Child Care	29	Welfare Fraud 3rd Grand Larceny 3rd	Newburgh
Marie Jean Giles	$3,566.00	SNAP	45	Welfare Fraud 3rd Grand Larceny 3rd	Middletown

 

District Attorney Hoovler highly commended Orange County Commissioner of Social Services Darcie Miller, and the Department of Social Services Special Investigations Unit for their work on these cases, as well as Orange County Sheriff Carl DuBois and the investigators in his office, who aided in the arrest of the defendants.

The maximum sentence for the Class D Felonies of Welfare Fraud in the Third Degree and Grand Larceny in the Third Degree is 2 ¹/₃ to 7 years in prison.

The maximum sentence for the Class E Felonies of Welfare Fraud in the Fourth Degree, Offering a False Instrument for Filing in the First Degree, and Grand Larceny in the Fourth Degree is 1 ¹/₃ to 4 years in prison.

“Stopping the theft of public monies, and recouping public money which has been fraudulently taken, has been a major priority of my Office since I became District Attorney,” said District Attorney Hoovler. “Prosecuting financial crimes can be challenging, and I am grateful for the investigative resources that we have been able to access through our partner agencies. The Department of Social Services Special Investigations Unit’s civil investigators, the Sheriff’s Office’s investigators, and investigators from the New York State Police and New York State Department of Taxation and Finance have worked with District Attorney’s Office investigators and prosecutors not only in successfully prosecuting offenders, but in recovering hundreds of thousands of dollars stolen from public benefits programs, and in recovering over one million dollars from tax frauds. We evaluate all of these cases individually, and make appropriate plea offers to lesser offenses if the circumstances warrant it. However, in all cases defendants are not allowed to keep monies that they should not have received in the first place. Public benefits programs are designed to help the truly needy, and to ensure that money remains available to help those who need them. Fraud in these programs cannot be tolerated and must be prosecuted. My office will continue to prosecute anyone who steals public funds.”

Orange County Sheriff Carl E. DuBois stated “The Orange County Sheriff’s Office continues to partner with the District Attorney and other county agencies in this and other efforts to ensure the proper distribution of benefits to those that are in need, and to arrest those that choose to cheat the system by fraudulent means. The partnership in these investigations is unprecedented and maximizes enforcement efforts put forth.”

The cases are being prosecuted by Assistant District Attorneys Kerry Kolek, David Curtin, and Lara Morrison.

A criminal charge is merely an allegation that a defendant has committed a violation of the criminal law, and it is not evidence of guilt. All defendants are presumed innocent and entitled to a fair trial, during which it will be the State of New York’s burden to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

[Not a valid template]