By The newspaper
04 Jul 2024, 12:34 PM EDT
Asmar Earp pleaded guilty to stealing years of welfare money intended for his ex-girlfriend’s disabled son shortly after she disappeared in 2017 in Newark, New Jersey’s most populous city, according to federal prosecutor Philip Sellinger.
Earp was romantically involved with a woman identified in court documents as “VW.” The couple lived with her disabled son who was a minor at the time.
VW applied for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) around September 2016 on behalf of her son, according to court documents cited by PIX11 News. The case was approved and the mother began receiving SSI benefits through a debit card sent by the program around May 2017.
A second card was issued on Dec. 3, 2017, and VW disappeared on Dec. 24 of that year. Earp took control of the benefits six days later by changing the PIN number, according to court documents.
SSI provides monthly payments to disabled and elderly people who have little income or resources. The indictment says Earp used VW’s personal information to obtain a new debit card in March and April 2018. Court documents show that between December 2017 and February 2020, Earp, with the help of others, took money intended to help the boy and used it for personal use.
In total, Earp stole about $19,797, prosecutors said. He was charged in May 2023 and has now pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft. The location of VW is still unknown, according to court documents. There was also no information available on the whereabouts of the boy.
Each wire fraud charge carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000 or twice the victim’s gross loss or the defendant’s gain, whichever is greater. The aggravated identity theft charge carries a mandatory two-year prison sentence that runs consecutively to any other sentence, and a fine similar to the prior charge, he noted. NBC News.
In April, a fraud investigator for the New York City Department of Homeless Services (DHS) was charged on suspicion of stealing identity information during the COVID pandemic and then selling it to a scammer in New Jersey, federal authorities alleged.
In a similar case, an MTA employee and a court official pleaded guilty in March to stealing $777,000 in COVID loans at the height of the coronavirus pandemic and were sentenced.
Also that month, a woman pleaded guilty to a fraud scheme involving about $3.5 million over six years while she was director of finance and administration at New York University (NYU).
In another recent case of fraud with public funds in New York, a Hispanic woman who worked at the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) was accused of having stolen thousands of dollars that were intended for disadvantaged children, forging their signatures to feed her lavish lifestyle, Manhattan prosecutors said.
Days after employees of New York City’s homeless services agency (DHS), the Postal Service (USPS), the Public Housing Authority (NYCHA), the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and a former NYPD school security officer were among 18 people charged in Manhattan after a ghost gun investigation uncovered a multimillion-dollar identity theft scam targeting homeless New Yorkers during the pandemic.
Earlier this year, there were other scandals involving city employees in New York: on February 29, the FBI raided two homes in the Bronx owned by Winnie Greco, director of Asian affairs for Mayor Eric Adams.
Previously, the homes and offices of two chief inspectors for the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) were raided as part of an FBI investigation into alleged corruption.
Days earlier, 55 current New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) employees and 15 retirees were arrested on February 6. The list includes several Hispanics identified as “supers” in buildings in several boroughs. It was the largest number of federal bribery charges filed in a single day in the history of the Department of Justice (DOJ).
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