ALBANY — Two state Department of Labor workers allegedly conducted a massive identity fraud scheme to steal more than $1.6 million in unemployment benefits during the pandemic using co-conspirators they enlisted through an ad on Craigslist as well as "friends and acquaintances," according to federal court records.
The pair, Wendell C. Giles, 51, a former Buffalo resident living in Albany, and 33-year-old Carl J. DiVeglia III of Albany, were snared as part of investigation by the FBI and the U.S. Department of Labor.
DiVeglia pleaded guilty on April 13 in U.S. District Court in Albany to mail fraud and aggravated identity theft, admitting in a plea agreement that he reaped about $225,000 in the 15-month-long scheme that that began in May 2020 and ended in August.
Giles, whose 51-year-old wife, Shawna M. McDaniel, is director of the Office of Equal Opportunity Development at the labor department, was arrested by federal authorities on Friday and charged with mail fraud and aggravated identity theft in an indictment handed up by a federal grand jury. McDaniel is not accused of wrongdoing.
According to DiVeglia's plea agreement, he and Giles work duties included "processing unemployment insurance claims and distributing state and federal unemployment insurance benefits to eligible New Yorkers." That work gave them access to the department's computer systems, which they used to enter the fraudulent claims and to instruct the systems to release the benefits.
The plea agreement...
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