84°
Stephen Pirrone, 54, formerly of Old Tappan and Norwood, took a deal after his three co-defendants all pleaded guilty in December.
Prosecutors said they will recommend a seven-year state prison term and $54,623 in restitution to the Department of Labor, under the terms of the deal, when Superior Court Judge James J. Guida sentences him on the conspiracy and theft convictions in Hackensack on April 27.
The other three are due to be sentenced this Friday.
The defendants were charged in a June 26, 2014 indictment obtained by the Division of Criminal Justice Specialized Crimes Bureau following an investigation by the DCJ and state Department of Labor and Workforce Development., Acting Attorney General John J. Hoffman said this afternoon.
Deputy Attorney General Debra A. Conrad prosecuted the case and took the guilty pleas.
Pirrone (all photos above) recently served more than two years in federal prison for collecting $200,000 in tax refunds by filing bogus W-2 forms claiming he worked for companies that didn’t exist.
Just before that, he served 18 months of a three-year state prison sentence on a 2010 burglary conviction out of Essex County, records show.
Authorities said he hatched the other scheme and enlisted the others in fraudulently collecting $183,433 in unemployment benefits defendants from November 2006 through March 2013 — including while he was in prison and being prosecuted on federal charges — in order to pay off a debt to one of them.
“All of the false claims were based on fraudulent employer quarterly wage statements submitted to the state in the names of two businesses that were defunct: a trucking company formerly operated by Pirrone called Culver Transportation, Inc., and a bankrupt trucking company from which Pirrone formerly rented office and terminal space,” Hoffman said this afternoon.
Co-defendants Wilfredo Sanchez, 38, of Newark, and Andre Brown, 37, “attempted to file additional claims using eight other false identities, but those claims were determined to be invalid by the Department of Labor and no benefits were distributed,” he said.
“As the Department of Labor has upgraded its security tools and techniques to detect unemployment fraud, they have helped us build strong criminal cases such as this one targeting multiple defendants and major fraud schemes,” Hoffman said. “We will continue to work diligently as partners to protect the state’s unemployment trust fund and the workers it serves.”
“Unemployment insurance fraud hurts honest New Jersey workers who strive to earn a living and count on these benefits to keep them afloat financially if they lose their jobs,” DCJ Director Elie Honig added. “By sending these men to prison, we are putting offenders on notice that we will aggressively prosecute this type of fraud.”
Deputy Attorney General Conrad presented the case to the state grand jury for the DCJ Specialized Crimes Bureau, Hoffman said. The DCJ investigation was conducted by Detectives Lynn Patrick Fitzgerald and Glenn Stanton, while the Department of Labor and Workforce Development probe was handled by Supervising Investigator Michael Kulyk and Supervisor of Investigations Michael B. Marich of the Bureau of Benefit Payment Control.
Click here to follow Daily Voice Hackensack and receive free news updates.
