The Mount Desert Islander reports on a man approaching middle age in Bar Harbor, Maine, who conspired to secure some extra financial cushion for his impending golden years by fraudulently collecting unemployment checks over a four-year period. (No amount of bailing is going to keep him from jailing.)
A 2015 indictment by a state grand jury accused the 47-year-old Mainer of maintaining employment while receiving unemployment checks and, of course, failing to report that he was, indeed, employed. For illegally collecting nearly $20,000 worth of unemployment benefits over a period of four years, the man was charged with one count of Class E unemployment fraud and another count of Class B theft by deception.By December of that year, he pleaded guilty to the theft by deception charge (hook), was ordered to pay $18,295 in restitution (line)and sentenced to thirty days in jail (and sinker).
To understand how unsurprising it is that this man eventually was caught, the Commissioner of Labor offered some compelling statistics to send a clear beacon of the Vacation State’s dedication to caging similar bottom-feeders, “To date in 2015, we have had 23 convictions and recovered through prosecution more than $85,000 in fraudulent payments with an additional $6,473 in penalties and interest; 78 fraud cases are pending with DAs.” (Reel ‘em in!)
To catch individuals who are claiming benefits illegally, the state’s Department of Labor is continuously making improvements in its systems to match those making claims against national and state employment databases.
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