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BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) – A Livingston Parish man has been sentenced to 4 years in federal prison after being convicted of fraud in connection with a fraudulent pandemic unemployment benefits scheme.
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that 35-year-old Chaz Ryan Watkins of Springfield, Louisiana, was convicted of using personal information of Louisiana inmates and others to solicit funds.
The court also sentenced Watkins to two years of supervised release following his prison term and ordered him to pay $178,620.00 in restitution to victims, including the Louisiana Workforce Commission (LWC), the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC), Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
According to admissions made as part of his guilty plea, between December 2019 and at least September 2021, Watkins obtained personally identifiable information from inmates in Louisiana prisons and others, including names, dates of birth and social security numbers. .
Officials said Watkins filed applications for pandemic unemployment benefits with the Louisiana Workforce Commission in the names of inmates who were ineligible for such benefits and in the names of others, often without the person’s knowledge or consent.
In those applications, Watkins requested that the payments be sent by direct deposit to his financial accounts or by prepaid debit cards sent to addresses under his control, according to the Justice Department.
Once the funds were received, Watkins withdrew them as cash from ATMs at various financial institutions in the Middle District of Louisiana.
The Justice Department confirmed he received more than $95,000 in unemployment benefits.
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