NEW YORK — A Brooklyn woman who pleaded guilty to fraud related to several pandemic-era relief programs was sentenced Thursday to three years of probation and $650,000 in fines.
Prosecutors said Chanette Lewis, 32, carried out some of the schemes using her job at a call center, part of a New York program designed to provide health care workers with isolation rooms in hotels. They said she provided free hotel rooms to people she knew were ineligible as health care workers or COVID-19 patients, including herself.
“During the pandemic, this defendant exploited a COVID-19 safe shelter program for her personal gain; today she is confronted with the consequences of her criminal behavior. I thank New York City Emergency Management for reporting this matter,” Jocelyn Strauber, commissioner of the New York Department of Investigation, said in a statement.
It’s the latest example of how people have stolen an estimated $280 billion in government aid during the pandemic in the US, including New York. The sentencing Thursday was part of a larger case involving $400,000 in fraud in the hotel program.
Lewis admitted to defrauding the emergency programs, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York said in a statement, and she separately falsified legal documents purportedly from judges, prosecutors and doctors to enroll 30 people in public housing or larger social housing. to get housing. apartments.
Using stolen personal information from real health care providers, she and three co-defendants were accused of securing the hotel rooms and then advertising them on Facebook for rent, according to the Department of Investigation Statement. Co-defendants in the case have admitted to receiving unemployment benefits in multiple states, along with fraudulent small business loans.
The Associated Press has left phone and email messages with an attorney involved in a settlement in the case. It was not immediately clear whether that was Lewis’ current attorney; requests to prosecutors and investigators for updated contact information were not immediately responded to.
Lewis was sentenced to three years’ probation and ordered to forfeit $290,000 and pay an additional $360,000 in fines. Her co-defendants have received lesser sentences or have yet to be sentenced.