Maryland Man Pleads Guilty in Unemployment Insurance and Tax Fraud Scheme
Daiwor “Mark Brown” Woah-Tee, 53, of Belcamp, pleaded guilty in federal court in Baltimore to false-claims, identity theft, and wire-fraud charges tied to a conspiracy that fraudulently obtained unemployment insurance benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic. The plea triggers mandatory sentencing proceedings and adds to the Justice Department’s ongoing recovery efforts from pandemic-era fraud that cost federal and state UI trust funds billions.
jpost.comBaltimore, Maryland — Daiwor “Mark Brown” Woah-Tee, 53, of Belcamp, pleaded guilty Tuesday in U.S. District Court here to conspiracy to submit false, fictitious, and fraudulent claims to the Internal Revenue Service and to wire fraud conspiracy, the Justice Department said.
Woah-Tee admitted participating in a scheme that exploited pandemic-era unemployment insurance programs, using stolen identities and fabricated information to generate fraudulent claims. The charges include aggravated identity theft, which carries a mandatory two-year prison term that must run consecutively to any other sentence.
The plea is part of a broader federal enforcement initiative targeting COVID-19 unemployment insurance fraud. The Department of Labor previously estimated that at least $100 billion — and possibly as much as $135 billion — was improperly paid from state UI programs and the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation programs between March 2020 and September 2021.
Those programs served more than 40 million claimants at peak.
The guilty plea changes Woah-Tee’s legal status from defendant to convicted felon. Sentencing is now scheduled under federal guidelines that account for the total loss amount, number of victims, and use of sophisticated means. The conviction also requires Woah-Tee to forfeit any proceeds of the fraud and to cooperate with investigators as a condition of his plea agreement.
Downstream, the case advances the Justice Department’s multi-district effort to recoup funds and prosecute organizers of unemployment insurance rings. Prosecutors must now calculate precise restitution tied to Woah-Tee’s specific claims, a figure that will be presented at sentencing.
The Internal Revenue Service will separately pursue any unpaid taxes or fraudulent refunds linked to the identity theft counts. Other co-conspirators identified during the investigation now face heightened pressure to negotiate their own resolutions before additional indictments are unsealed.
This marks the latest conviction secured by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland in pandemic-related fraud matters. The department has pursued similar identity-theft and wire-fraud cases tied to UI schemes in at least a dozen federal districts since 2022, following the expiration of most pandemic UI programs in September 2021.
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