King County inmates used jail phones to target ill veterans in fraud scheme

A former King County Jail inmate and his accomplice were convicted Monday for a scheme to target seriously ill veterans for fraud.

Darryl Lamont Young, 47, was convicted of all 14 counts in the indictment, and his co-conspirator, Aqeelah Ngiesha Williams, 29, was convicted of 12 counts, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced.

From behind bars, Young posed as a VA worker to target ICU patients

While Young was incarcerated, he used the jail phone system to place calls to the local Veterans Affairs (VA) medical center, according to the records in the case and testimony at trial. The calls Young made were free, and the local VA did not receive the jail’s announcement that the calls were from an inmate.

Young impersonated a VA employee and asked to be transferred to out-of-state medical facilities. Since the VA transferred the call, the out-of-state medical center was unaware that it was coming from an inmate.

Once Young was connected with the out-of-state medical center, he posed as a VA employee, “Jason in bed control” or “Travis” in “patient registration,” requesting information about the patients who were currently in the Intensive Care Unit. He asked for patients’ names and the names and phone numbers of their emergency contact person.

DOJ noted Young was a former military member and had some understanding of VA hospital operations.

After Young received information about a seriously ill veteran, he would call Williams, who would then place a three-way call to the veteran or the veteran’s emergency contact. Young would pretend to be a VA employee who needed the ill veteran’s credit or debit card information to deposit COVID-19 stimulus benefits into the veteran’s bank account.

Once Young and Williams obtained the veterans’ card information, they would use it to deposit funds into Young’s commissary and jail call accounts.

Inmate’s scheme preyed on some of the most vulnerable victims

Over the course of the scheme, Young and Williams targeted more than 30 VA and non-VA medical facilities, encompassing more than 60 victims. The pair attempted 130 fraudulent transactions on victim accounts and obtained roughly $8,300 in the scheme.

“This was a shared plan, a shared purpose, a shared role — using fraud to steal from vulnerable victims,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Sok Tea Jiang told the jury in closing arguments. “These defendants forced their way into the hospital through the phone lines with lies and deception.”

Both defendants were charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft. Both were convicted of six counts of aggravated identity theft. Young was convicted of six counts of wire fraud, and Williams of four.

Conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud are both punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Aggravated identity theft is punishable by two years in prison to run consecutive to any other sentence imposed in the case.

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