Washington pair indicted for fraudulently targeting ill veterans

A former Washington State Department of Corrections inmate and his accomplice have been indicted by a federal grand jury for their scheme to target seriously ill veterans for fraud.

U.S. Attorney Tessa M. Gorman announced on Oct. 4 that Darryl Lamont Young, 46, is in the King County Jail on unrelated charges. His co-defendant, Aqeelah Ngiesha Williams, 27, was arrested on Oct. 4 and pleaded not guilty that same day in federal court.

“The conduct in this case is truly shocking – calling medical facilities and seriously ill veterans under the pretense of being a VA employee trying to provide the ill veteran with financial benefits. In reality, these two were seeking personal and financial information to defraud the veteran,” Gorman said in a release. “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.”

According to the indictment, Young has served in the military and understood some of the services provided to veterans. Between December 2021, and April 2023, while incarcerated, Young would use the jail phone system to place calls to veteran’s facilities. He would ask to be transferred to a particular medical facility so that the medical facility would not know that the call was from an inmate.

Once connected to the medical facility, Young allegedly posed as a VA employee who needed information about the various patients currently in the Intensive Care Unit, including their phone numbers and names for their emergency contact person.

Once Young had information about a seriously ill veteran, he would call Williams who allegedly placed a three-way call to the veteran or the relative listed as the veteran’s representative.

Young would then pretend to be a VA employee calling with information about benefits to be deposited to the veteran’s bank account, according to the indictment. Once Young and Williams had that account information from the veteran, they used it to steal funds from the victims’ accounts and transfer them to accounts they controlled.

Young and Williams targeted more than 30 VA and non-VA medical facilities and targeted more than 60 victims. They attempted 130 fraudulent transactions on victim accounts and obtained about $8,000 from the scheme.

The pair are charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, six counts of wire fraud for phone calls made via wire to various VA medical centers across the country, and six counts of aggravated identity theft for their possession or use of personal information from the victims for fraud.

Conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud are each 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.

Reach Julia LeDoux at Julia@connectingvets.com .