Logan Smith is an assignment desk editor at CBS Colorado in Denver with more than 30 years of journalism experience in digital, television and print media.
A 63-year-old Colorado man wooed a woman he met online during the COVID pandemic with money illegally obtained from the federal government.
The Akron resident was recently sentenced to 15 months in prison and repayment of more than $228,000.
His love interest turned out to be a scammer.
William Chadwick was indicted by a federal grand jury in April on money laundering charges. He pleaded guilty in June to a single count and was sentenced Sept. 30.
According to a court document, Chadwick obtained funds from Unemployment Insurance benefits, Emergency Rental Assistance proceeds, and Paycheck Protection business loans. The latter two programs were created by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security, or CARES, Act, which was enacted in March 2020.
Two months later, according to the plea agreement in Chadwick’s case, applications for aid in Chadwick’s name began arriving at federal agencies. Through August of 2022, more than 100 applications for UI benefits alone were submitted in Chadwick’s name, all with misleading or fraudulent information. He was approved for more than $1.4 million, according to the plea agreement, and received 15 debit cards in other people’s names. He withdrew more than $81,000 from these cards through cash ATMs and bitcoin ATMs across Colorado.
He used that money, according to the affidavit, to send cryptocurrency and gift cards to the unidentified woman.
Thousands more in fraudulent funds were deposited into several bank accounts controlled by Chadwick, according to prosecutors. Chadwick also turned most of those proceeds into cryptocurrency and gift cards and also sent them to the “woman.”
“Chadwick laundered fraudulently obtained unemployment insurance funds intended for Americans that were struggling during the pandemic,” Quentin Heiden, special agent-in-charge of the Western Region of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General, said in a press release.
Prosecutors referred to Chadwick’s arrangement with the woman as a romance scam. Contacted by CBS Colorado on Friday, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Colorado, wouldn’t divulge more information about the reported scam.
The maximum sentence for the specific money laundering charge, which Chadwick pleaded guilty to, is 20 years in prison and $500,000 in restitution.
Reached at his home on Saturday, Chadwick declined to comment out of fear for worsening his sentence. Like a number of non-violent federal offenders, the serving of his sentence has been delayed by the recent government shutdown. It’s not known yet when he will have to report to prison.
