COVID Con: 22-Year-Old Gets Prison In $70K Unemployment Scam

YONKERS, NY — A Yonkers man will be paying for a pandemic scam behind bars.

Errol Murray, 22, of Yonkers was sentenced Wednesday to 12 months in prison for his part in a scheme to fraudulently obtain nearly $70,000 in unemployment insurance benefits, including benefits funded by the federal government in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The announcement was made Wednesday by United States Attorney Carla B. Freedman; Special Agent in Charge of the Buffalo Field Office of Homeland Security Investigations Matthew Scarpino, Special Agent in Charge Northeast Region U.S. Department of Labor Jonathan Mellone, Inspector in Charge of the Boston Division of the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) Ketty Larco-Ward, and New York State Inspector General Lucy Lang.

As part of a plea bargain, Murray admitted that he provided Jamie Johnson with his personally identifiable information and similar information of another person, which Johnson used to file false claims online with the New York State Department of Labor (NYSDOL). Murray also admitted that as a result of the two fraudulent applications submitted by Johnson, the NYSDOL paid out $69,954 in unemployment insurance benefits.

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• 22-Year-Old Westchester Man Guilty In COVID Relief Fraud Scheme
• Westchester 21-Year-Old Charged In $700K COVID Relief Scam: Feds

Johnson had already entered a guilty plea in a case in which he fraudulently obtained $701,441 in unemployment insurance benefits as part of the scheme.

Murray’s co-defendants, Taliek Lanier, 23, of Albany, and Thomas Brace, a/k/a "Justice," 62, of Altoona, Pennsylvania, previously pleaded guilty to charges stemming from their roles in the scheme with Johnson. Lanier was sentenced to 12 months in prison to be followed by a three-year term of supervised release, while Brace was sentenced to time served and three years of supervised release, according to the DOJ.

The judge also imposed a three-year term of supervised release, to begin after Murray is released from prison, and ordered him to pay $69,954 in restitution to the State of New York.

The case was investigated by HSI, USDOL-OIG, USPIS, and the New York State Inspector General’s Office, with assistance from the NYSDOL Office of Special Investigations, the Capital Region Crime Analysis Center, and the Albany County Department of Social Services. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Joshua R. Rosenthal and Joseph S. Hartunian prosecuted the case.

On May 17, 2021, the Attorney General established the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force to marshal the resources of the Department of Justice in partnership with agencies across government to enhance efforts to combat and prevent pandemic-related fraud. The Task Force bolsters efforts to investigate and prosecute the most culpable domestic and international criminal actors and assists agencies tasked with administering relief programs to prevent fraud by, among other methods, augmenting and incorporating existing coordination mechanisms, identifying resources and techniques to uncover fraudulent actors and their schemes, and sharing and harnessing information and insights gained from prior enforcement efforts.

More information on the Department’s response to the pandemic can be found here.

Anyone with information about allegations of attempted fraud involving COVID-19 can report it by calling the Department of Justice’s National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) Hotline at 866-720-5721 or via the NCDF Web Complaint Form here.