Fraud News Around the Nation

Less than one week before her trial was scheduled to begin in federal court in Dallas, a Grand Prairie, Texas, woman, Andria Victoria Booker, a/k/a Andria Victoria Crosby, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Sidney A. Fitzwater to one count of making false statements or fraud to obtain federal employees’ compensation, announced U.S. Attorney John Parker of the Northern District of Texas.

Booker, who is in custody, faces a maximum statutory penalty of five years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine. According to the plea agreement filed in the case, Booker agrees to pay $41,395 in restitution to the U.S. Department of Labor Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs (OWCP). Sentencing is set for April 21, 2017, before Judge Fitzwater.

In March 2012, Booker claimed she was injured by a dog bite on her finger through a residential mail slot while she was working for the U.S. Postal Service. OWCP accepted her injury claim and began paying her disability benefits.

As part of the OWCP benefits program, a claimant must annually truthfully complete Form EN-1032 that requires a claimant to report employment, self-employment activities, volunteer activities, or any activities that may affect the claimant’s eligibility for payments. Form EN-1032 encompasses all activities for the 15-month period preceding the date of the claimant’s signature.

According to plea documents filed in her case, Booker admits that she did not immediately report to OWCP her employment or employment activity, and she concealed the fact that she was working when she signed and dated Form EN-1032 in September 2014. Booker admits that she worked as a personal trainer at I.T. Fitness in Grand Prairie, Texas, and elsewhere, including forming her own personal training business while she was receiving disability compensation benefits from the OWCP and had stated she did not work. Booker further admitted that she did not report any of her volunteer activities to the OWCP, as she was required to do, when she regularly volunteered for her son’s football program as team representative.

The case was investigated by the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General. Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Bray is in charge of the prosecution.

A former Norman, Okla., attorney has been ordered to pay more than $525,000 in restitution to former clients and the federal government for fraud.

The Norman Transcript reports that Dane Thomas Wilson was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison in December, nearly a year after he pleaded guilty to using wire fraud in order to embezzle his clients’ insurance payments. A federal judge ordered the restitution last week.

Prosecutors say Wilson would deposit money he received in a client trust account and then write checks to himself. He was also accused of making cash withdrawals or transferring money in amounts that exceeded the fees he was supposed to receive as his clients’ attorney.

Wilson said some clients received less than or none of the money they were owed.

Nearly $330,000 of the restitution amount will go to the Oklahoma Bar Association, which used its Client Security Fund to pay that amount to Wilson’s victims for the past five years. About $140,000 of the restitution will go to 19 former clients, and the rest will go to the IRS.

Ruby Frame of Norman was awarded more than $80,000 after Wilson reportedly defrauded her of $125,000 she was supposed to receive following a car crash.