Darryl Lamont Young and Aqeelah Ngiesha Williams were indicted Oct. 4, 2024, in Washington state for targeting seriously ill veterans in a fraud scheme. Both pleaded not guilty in federal court in Seattle. (File)
A man who prosecutors say once served in the military is facing fraud and identity theft charges in a “truly shocking” scheme to steal from veterans in intensive care, according to the Justice Department.
Darryl Lamont Young, 46, was indicted Friday in federal court in Seattle along with 27-year-old Aqeelah Ngiesha Williams, who prosecutors say helped in the scheme. They tried to make 130 fraudulent transactions and took in about $8,000, a Justice Department statement Friday said.
“While they did not get a huge amount of money with this scheme, the harm they caused to those already suffering a health crisis is deserving of federal prosecution,” U.S. Attorney Tessa Gorman said in the statement.
Young and Williams are charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, six counts of wire fraud and six counts of aggravated identity theft. The scheme ran from December 2021 to April 2023, prosecutors said.
Young was already incarcerated and made calls from various correctional facilities to Department of Veterans Affairs treatment centers, posing as a VA employee providing financial benefits to sick veterans, according to the statement.
“In reality, these two were seeking personal and financial information to defraud the veteran,” Gorman said, adding that what the defendants are accused of doing is “truly shocking.”
The indictment said Young had served in the military and therefore knew about some of the services offered to veterans. On the phone calls he made from jail, he disguised his location by asking to be transferred to a given VA facility, according to the statement.
He passed himself off as a VA worker who needed information about various patients in the intensive care unit and then called Williams, who in turn would make a three-way call to veterans or their representatives, prosecutors said.
Young and Williams used the information to steal money from the veterans’ accounts and transfer it to their own, the Justice Department statement said. The two of them targeted more than 30 medical facilities and more than 60 victims, it added.
Each count of wire fraud and conspiracy carries a maximum 20-year prison sentence, while aggravated identity theft is punishable by a two-year term that would be served consecutively.
