Troy Man Charged With Pandemic Unemployment Insurance Fraud

Summary

Press release of the U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of New York, dated December 19, 2024, announcing that Daion Morris of Troy, New York, was arraigned on an indictment charging wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. The indictment alleges that Morris used a stolen identity to create an unemployment insurance claim in September 2020 and recertified it through March 2021, receiving over $29,000 in benefits in the victim's name. Upon conviction on all counts Morris would face at least 2 years and up to 22 years in prison. Morris was ordered released pending trial before Senior United States District Judge Lawrence E. Kahn.

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Full text

PRESS RELEASE


Troy Man Charged With Pandemic
Unemployment Insurance Fraud
Thursday, December 19, 2024

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

ALBANY, NEW YORK – Daion Morris, age 32, of Troy, New York, was arraigned today on
an indictment charging him with wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

United States Attorney Carla B. Freedman; Erin Keegan, Special Agent in Charge of the
Buffalo Field Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI); and Lucy Lang, New York
State Inspector General (NYSIG), made the announcement.

The indictment alleges that Morris used a stolen identity to create an unemployment
insurance claim in September 2020, and continually recertified the claim through March
2021. Morris received over $29,000 in unemployment insurance benefits in the victim’s
name. The charges in the indictment are merely accusations. The defendant is
presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

Upon conviction on all counts, Morris would face at least 2 years and up to 22 years in
prison; a fine of up to $250,000; and a term of supervised release of up to 3 years. A
defendant’s sentence is imposed by a judge based on the particular statute the
defendant is charged with violating, the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other factors.

Morris was arraigned today in Albany, before United States Magistrate Judge Daniel J.
Stewart, and ordered released pending a trial before Senior United States District Judge
Lawrence E. Kahn.

HSI, NYSIG, the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Inspector General, the U.S. Postal
Inspection Service and the New York State Department of Labor – Office of Special
Investigations investigated the case, which Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan S. Reiner is
prosecuting.

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 19, 2024

Topics
CORONAVIRUS

FINANCIAL FRAUD


Component
USAO - New York, Northern


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