HACK EMPLOYEE OF THE YEAR
State's identity thief hire takes top honors
It was a nationwide search.
Meet Tiffany Pacheco, aka Tiffany Wolfe, or, as she’s known on the federal Bureau of Prisons website, Tiffany Nicole Tavery, #82603-380.
Tiffany Nicole Tavery Pacheco — State Hack Employee of the Year!
Before we consider Tiffany’s curriculum vitae, remember that the same incompetent hacks who hired this sticky-fingered jailbird to steal tens of thousands in public funds are now loudly ordering you not to set foot outside your house today on Christmas.
Because they’re smart and you’re stupid.
The “folks” in state government who are smugly confident of their ability to micromanage your life couldn’t be bothered doing the most rudimentary background check on a career criminal.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before …
Anyway, according to the federal criminal complaint, Tiffany began 2020 as she begins most years, locked up, this time in the federal pen in Hazelton, W.Va. She’d been doing a stretch for aggravated identity theft in San Antonio, was released and then almost immediately lugged again for bouncing “numerous fraudulent checks.”
Do you begin to detect a pattern here? The state didn’t.
At age 35, Tiffany was released from Hazelton on Feb. 19. Decisions loomed: where was the best place to resume her criminal career with next to no chance of ever being caught?
Like the Bee Gees, Tiffany was going back to Maskachusetts.
On March 24, the thieving jailbird brazenly applied for a job processing unemployment claims for the Mass. Department of Unemployment Assistance.
On April 16, she was hired — $25.84 an hour for 37.5 hours, which works out to $969 a week. She worked from “home” in New Bedford as “Job Service Representative I.”
On June 16, the G-men say, she filed her first MA unemployment claim for herself. Thirty-nine minutes later, she filed one for her 47-year-old husband, Arthur, who was doing his own stretch in a Texas prison.
She started slowly, at first claiming no income for 2019 and zero dependents. That enabled her to steal $267 a week in benefits, the feds say. Needless to say, none of the crack sleuths on Gov. Charlie Parker’s payroll noticed a damn thing.
Pretty soon, as a reward for her distinguished public service, Tiffany was granted direct computer access to the state’s coffers. Can you imagine what happened next?
By Aug. 17, Tiffany had changed all her initial smaller income numbers, and was claiming that pre-Panic, she had been making $244,542 a year. And instead of no dependents, she now claimed seven. Which enabled her to pocket $998 a week in welfare (plus the $969 paycheck).
You might say Tiffany was making it in Maskachusetts.
As for her husband, Arthur’s reported income skyrocketed from zero in June to $330,658.22 in August. He was still in prison, of course.
According to the feds, the scam only unraveled when Arthur was paroled on Sept. 4. By Sept. 22, he was back with Tiffany in New Bedford, a parole violator from Texas.
When the cops picked Arthur up at Tiffany’s place in New Bedford, they discovered a veritable factory of ID theft equipment, not to mention $17,000 in cash.
They also “seized a notebook that appeared to contain instructions for perpetuating various criminal schemes involving counterfeit checks, credit card fraud, blackmail, mail theft, shell companies, charitable solicitations, fake drivers’ licenses and bank fraud.”
Can you see why Tiffany has copped the coveted State Hack Employee of the Year award?
The Pachecos also had two local bank accounts stuffed with state unemployment funds — $41,177 in one and $18,522 in the other.
The lovebirds were arrested in Texas last week. Tiffany is now charged with stealing $45,932 and Arthur $48,926.
Her erstwhile employer, the Department of Unemployment Assistance, issued a statement that said, in effect, “Huh?”
Charlie Parker likewise shrugged his shoulders and babbled, “We’ve been in constant contact with federal authorities.”
Whatever happened to background checks and references? As her previous employer, Tiffany even listed contact info that “identified the facility as FCI (Federal Correction Institution) in Hazelton WV, a BOP facility where TIFFANY had been incarcerated.”
Was no one curious enough to check out the inmate locator on the BOP website? It would have taken 10 seconds to find Tiffany Tavery’s name.
The Yuletide lesson here: in Charlie Parker’s Maskachusetts, you can steal all the public money you want and nobody will ever care, or even notice, at least as long as you don’t try to sneak an 11th person into your home for tonight’s Christmas dinner.