A pair of Washingtonians face serious prison time after being convicted of a slew of charges for an elaborate scheme to defraud sick and elderly veterans.
Much of the scheme was orchestrated via jailhouse phone calls placed from the King County Jail.
Federal prosecutors said Darryl Young would call hospitals while in jail for a different crime, posing as an employee in order to get patients’ personal information. He would then give their bank information to an accomplice outside of jail, who would take money from their accounts.
“It was pretty elaborate for them to come up with this scheme in jail and keep trying until they got through to the right people,” Neil Floyd, First Assistant US Attorney for the Western District of Washington, told KIRO 7.
The scheme targeted more than 30 hospitals across the US, most of them VA medical centers. More than 60 victims were located, primarily seriously ill veterans in intensive care units.
A retired US Army officer himself, the case was of particular interest to Floyd.
“Me, personally, it had a huge impact,” he said. “Knowing that they are going after veterans that served their country and now are being exploited based on that service.”
Court documents state Young would call the hospitals, then have his call transferred so it was not clear it was coming from inside a jail. He would then pose as an employee and ask for patients’ sensitive information, citing “medical or administrative reasons.”
He would then have his accomplice, Aqeelah Williams, create a three-way call between herself, Young and the patient or a patient’s relative, making sure they did not hear the recording that the call came from inside a jail.
“And when they finally got ahold of the victim, the patients, they would inform them that they had a VA stimulus that they wanted to make payment to,” Floyd said. “Basically, ‘Can we have your bank account information?’ And they used that information to take money from them.”
Prosecutors said they tracked more than 130 fraudulent bank transactions totaling more than $8,000.
Young represented himself at trial. He and Williams were each found guilty of multiple counts of aggravated identity theft, wire fraud and more this week.
They could face decades in prison, but a sentencing date has not yet been set.
“It was a particularly despicable crime,” Floyd said.
KIRO 7 reached out to the US Department of Veterans Affairs to find out what is being done to prevent something like this from happening again.
A spokesperson called the crimes abhorrent and said the specifics are being investigated to protect other veterans.