Chester County Man Sentenced to Over 2 ½ Years for Stealing Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Funds
Summary
A press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania dated April 14, 2022. It announces that Kenneth L. Huggins, Jr., of Coatesville was sentenced by United States District Judge Gerald J. Pappert to two years and nine months in prison and three years of supervised release for a fraudulent pandemic unemployment application filed while Huggins was imprisoned on a state drug trafficking sentence. The release states that beginning in July 2020 Huggins arranged for co-defendants Patrice Hawthorne and Dashona Lawrence to submit a Pandemic Unemployment Assistance claim on Huggins's behalf from Chester County Prison and sought applications for two fellow inmates. Huggins pleaded guilty in December 2021 to mail fraud and conspiracy and obtained nearly $13,000 in benefits, according to the release.
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“Chester County Man Sentenced to Over 2 ½ Years for Stealing Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Funds.”
Archived at Pandemic Darlings, https://pandemicdarlings.com/source-documents/2022-04-20-chester-county-man-sentenced-to-over-2-years-for-stealing-p-2197133222/
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Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
Eastern District of Pennsylvania
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Thursday, April 14, 2022
Chester County Man Sentenced to Over 2 ½ Years for
Stealing Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Funds While
Incarcerated
PHILADELPHIA – United States Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams announced that Kenneth L.
Huggins, Jr., 25, of Coatesville, PA, was sentenced to two years and nine months in prison, and three
years of supervised release by United States District Judge Gerald J. Pappert for filing a fraudulent
application for pandemic unemployment compensation while he was imprisoned on a state drug
trafficking sentence, thus making him ineligible to receive those benefits.
On March 27, 2020, the CARES ACT was enacted and created the Pandemic Unemployment
Assistance (“PUA”) program, to provide unemployment benefits to workers who lost their jobs
because of the COVID-19 pandemic and who were ineligible for other unemployment compensation.
In December 2021, the defendant pleaded guilty to charges of mail fraud and conspiracy to commit
mail fraud stemming from this scheme to file false PUA claims. Beginning in July 2020, Huggins
abused the emergency benefit program by arranging to have his mother (co-defendant Patrice
Hawthorne) and cousin (co-defendant Dashona Lawrence) submit a fraudulent PUA claim on his
behalf. At the time, Huggins was an inmate at Chester County Prison in West Chester, PA, and he
had been incarcerated there since before the pandemic began. Huggins also attempted to convince
his co-defendants to file fraudulent PUA applications for two of his fellow inmates (who were also
ineligible for benefits because they were not unemployed as a result of the pandemic) and planned to
keep the vast majority of any funds paid to those inmates for himself. In total, Huggins fraudulently
obtained nearly $13,000 in PUA benefits.
“Pandemic Unemployment Assistance funds are intended to help working Americans continue to pay
their bills and make ends meet, even when hours and wages have dropped dramatically due to the
pandemic,” said U.S. Attorney Williams. “Thieves who attempt to take these funds are taking
advantage of others’ misfortune – ripping them off while also ripping off all taxpayers who fund the
program. Huggins fraudulently obtained thousands of dollars in funds that could have helped
struggling individuals.”
“The job losses from COVID-19 were fast and furious in 2020,” said Jacqueline Maguire, Special
Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Philadelphia Division. “So many people lost their livelihoods and
needed help fast. The Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program was enacted as a safety net, not
an ATM for prison inmates seeking easy money. Kenneth Huggins stole thousands of taxpayer
dollars to which he knew he wasn’t entitled. Anyone considering doing the same should know this:
the FBI is committed to finding and locking up criminals willfully defrauding the federal
government.”
The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service,
Criminal Investigations, and the U.S. Department of Labor Office of the Inspector General, and is
being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Jessica Rice.
Topic(s):
Financial Fraud
Component(s):
USAO - Pennsylvania, Eastern
Contact:
UNITED STATES ATTORNEY’S OFFICE EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA 615 Chestnut
Street, Suite 1250 Philadelphia, PA 19106 JENNIFER CRANDALL Media Contact 215-861-8300 If
you have not done so already, follow @USAO_EDPA and @USAttyWilliams on Twitter to get the
most up-to-date information about big cases and community news.
Updated April 15, 2022
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