April 25, 2008

SOLANO COUNTY HEALTH AND SOCIAL SERVICES EMPLOYEE IN VALLEJO INDICTED FOR STEALING IDENTITIES OF BENEFITS RECIPIENTS, COMMITTING BANK FRAUD

SACRAMENTO, Calif.—United States Attorney McGregor W. Scott and United States Postal Inspector in Charge Diana Torpey announced today that a federal grand jury returned an indictment charging JENNIFER MILLER, 43, of Vallejo, with conspiracy to commit bank fraud, bank fraud, and aggravated identity theft. Also charged in the fourteen-count indictment were MILLER’s sister, JACQUELINE CRAFT, 51, MILLER’s niece KHALILAH LATOYA FULLER, 31, and MAISHA PEARL JONES, 33, all of Vallejo.

This case is the product of an extensive investigation by the United States Postal Inspection Service, San Francisco Division. The Vallejo Police Department and the Pinole Police Department also assisted in the investigation.

According to Assistant United States Attorney Russell L. Carlberg, who is prosecuting the case, the indictment alleges that MILLER abused her position with the Solano County Health and Social Services Department in order to obtain the names, dates of birth, social security numbers, and driver’s license numbers of recipients of Solano County health and social services benefits. MILLER then provided the stolen identities to FULLER, who opened bank accounts in the names of the victims. CRAFT then wrote multiple non-sufficient funds checks drawn on accounts at one set of banks and deposited them into accounts at a second set of banks. Before the checks came back rejected for non-sufficient funds, MILLER, CRAFT, FULLER and JONES would withdraw funds credited against the deposited checks. The scheme lasted from approximately November 2006 through September 2007.

According to U.S. Attorney Scott, “This investigation involved outstanding cooperation of local and federal authorities across two federal judicial districts. Identity theft erodes public trust in government whenever government employees abuse access to confidential information for personal profit. We take these kinds of cases very seriously,” Scott said.
“Victims of identity theft suffer extreme personal anguish, further intensified here when the perpetrator violated her position of public trust in the commission of the crime,” said Inspector in Charge Diana Torpey. “This is an excellent example of Postal Inspectors and local law enforcement coming together to bring to justice an individual who misused our nation’s mail system to commit identity theft.”

The maximum statutory penalty for a violation of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, and for bank fraud, is 30 years in prison, a fine of $1,000,000, a five-year term of supervised release, and a mandatory special assessment of $100.00. Aggravated identity theft carries a two-year statutory mandatory minimum sentence on top of any other sentence. The actual sentence, however, will be determined at the discretion of the court after consideration of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take into account a number of variables and any applicable statutory sentencing factors.

The charges are only allegations and the defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

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For more information on federal criminal defense law, contact the Law Offices of Joseph Shemaria of Los Angeles, California.