A Florida man pleaded guilty to charges related to fraudulent applications for more than $176,000 in unemployment and COVID-19 relief funds from several states, including Maryland.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office of Maryland said in a news release Thursday that Christopher Kenneth Guy, 30, of Tampa pleaded guilty to federal charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and mail fraud, and aggravated identity theft.
He is set to be sentenced May 11 and could face a maximum of 20 years in prison and a mandatory sentence of two years in federal prison, consecutive to any other sentence imposed, for aggravated identity theft.
Prosecutors said, according to his plea agreement, that from May 26, 2020, to Aug. 5, 2020, Guy and others submitted fraudulent applications for unemployment benefits under the CARES Act, which was enacted in March 2020 to assist people experiencing financial distress as a result of the pandemic. The applications were submitted in Oklahoma, Maryland, Arizona, Massachusetts, California, Nevada and other states.
The state agencies issued the pandemic unemployment benefit funds to debit cards in the names of the identity theft victims. The cards were mailed to addresses in Maryland and elsewhere. Guy, and other co-conspirators who were not named, used the debit cards to withdraw money and to conduct retail transactions, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said that from July 27 to Aug. 5, 2020, Guy conducted fraudulent transactions using debit cards in the names of at least seven identity theft victims.
On Aug. 5, 2020, Guy used one of the fraudulent cards to buy a laptop for over $2,200 from a retail store in Elkridge.
Howard County Police officers, who had been called for a possible fraudulent purchase, approached Guy in the parking lot. He told officers that he lost the receipt and made the purchase using a card he produced bearing no name, prosecutors said. When officers pointed out the number on the card did not match that listed on the receipt reprinted by the store, Guy told them that he must have lost the card he used to purchase the laptop, according to prosecutors.
Officers then arrested him and found the card he used to buy the laptop in his pocket.
The county police department searched Guy’s car and found $1,500 in cash, four debit cards issued in names other than Guy’s, as well as multiple electronic devices and a room key from a hotel in Chevy Chase.
After searching his hotel room, police found an additional 13 debit cards issued in various names, additional electronic devices, receipts from retail purchases, and over $11,600 in cash.
Surveillance photos showed Guy using the debit cards at ATMs within a mile of the hotel, prosecutors said. While searching his electronic devices, prosecutors said, there were also internet searches and browsing history relating to unemployment benefits, notes containing the mailing addresses where the debit cards were sent and a listing of the last four digits of each of the 18 debit cards recovered, each with a monetary balance listed next to it.
