Albany Man Sentenced to 27 Months for Pandemic Unemployment Insurance Fraud (Press Release, December 18, 2023)

Summary

A press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of New York, dated December 18, 2023, announcing that Kahleke Taylor of Albany was sentenced to 27 months in prison for a mail and wire fraud scheme involving pandemic-related unemployment insurance benefits. As part of a guilty plea, Taylor admitted soliciting personal information on social media and using it to file false unemployment insurance applications with the New York State Department of Labor (NYSDOL), resulting in payments of $207,004. United States District Judge Mae A. D'Agostino imposed a 2-year term of supervised release and ordered $207,004 in restitution and forfeiture of a $192,731 money judgment. Co-defendant Taquan Parker was sentenced to 13 months in prison and co-defendant Olajuwon Sutherland to 3 years of probation.

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PRESS RELEASE



Albany Man Sentenced to 27
Months for Pandemic
Unemployment Insurance Fraud
Monday, December 18, 2023


For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of New York

ALBANY, NEW YORK – Kahleke Taylor, a/k/a “Flex,” age 23, of Albany, was sentenced
today to 27 months in prison for a mail and wire fraud scheme that obtained more than
$200,000 in COVID-19 pandemic-related unemployment insurance benefits using the
personal information of other people.

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

As part of his previously entered guilty plea, Taylor admitted to soliciting personal
information from other people on social media. He used the information to make false
online unemployment insurance applications to the New York State Department of
Labor (NYSDOL). On one application he filed in August 2020, for example, Taylor
certified that a person had lost work at a hotel in Latham, New York, in March 2020 due
to “Lack of Work – COVID,” all of which was false. From September 2020 through June
2021, the applications Taylor admitted to filing as part of the fraud scheme resulted in
benefits payments of $207,004.

United States District Judge Mae A. D’Agostino also imposed a 2-year term of
supervised release, to begin after Taylor is released from prison. Judge D’Agostino
ordered Taylor to pay $207,004 in restitution to the State of New York and to forfeit a
$192,731 money judgment to the United States.
Taylor’s co-defendants, Taquan Parker, age 27, of Rensselaer, New York, and Olajuwon
Sutherland, a/k/a “Suave,” age 28, of Troy, New York, previously pled guilty to charges
stemming from their roles in the scheme with Taylor. Parker was sentenced to 13
months in prison to be followed by a 3-year term of supervised release while Sutherland
was sentenced to 3 years of probation.

This 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 and
the Schenectady 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. For more information
on the Department’s response to the pandemic, please
visit https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus.

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
at: https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form.

Updated December 18, 2023

Topics
CORONAVIRUS

FINANCIAL FRAUD
Component
USAO - New York, Northern


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