Detroit man sentenced to 8 years in prison for role in $2.2M unemployment fraud scheme
(CBS DETROIT) - A Detroit man has been sentenced to eight years in federal prison in connection to defrauding government agencies out of $2.2 million in COVID-19 pandemic assistance money and defrauding the United States Postal Service out of $200,000.
Chaz Duane Shields, 35, of Detroit, was sentenced on Thursday, Feb. 9.
According to Attorney Dawn N. Ison, from May 2020 through at least July 2021, Shields and his co-conspirators had agreed to submit more than 240 fraudulent unemployment claims to over 20 states.
The purpose of this was to obtain more than $2.2 million in unemployment insurance benefits.
In addition, the U.S. Department of Justice says he obtained a fraudulent $20,833 Paycheck Protection Program loan.
Officials say in a separate incident, Shields conspired to submit more than 1,000 fraudulent Domestic Indemnity Insurance claims, in the names of 40 different people, to the USPS. He defrauded the postal service out of over $200,000.
"Shields and others used USPS Self-Service Kiosks to mail a number of packages," according to the U.S. Department of Justice. "For each of the packages, the conspirators subsequently filed a fraudulent Domestic Indemnity Insurance claim by attesting that the package contained an item of significant value. In reality, the packages typically contained empty plastic picture frames with little to no value. The USPS mailed a check for each successful claim, which Chaz and his co-conspirators cashed, knowing that they were not entitled to the postal indemnity insurance payments."
Officials say Shields has a history of fraud going back to 2016. He has accumulated six separate state fraud convictions, five in Michigan and one in Maryland.
Co-conspirators, in this case, include the following individuals:
- Cortney Shaquan Shields, 31, of Detroit (sentenced to 41 months in prison)
- Daeshawn Tamar Posey, 27, of Detroit (sentenced to 63 months in prison)
- Brittany Levett Witherspoon, 26, of Warren (will be sentenced on May 1, 2023)
