Repeat offender sentenced again
Identity thief manipulated pandemic unemployment benefits
The woman hired into a state government position that gave her privileged access to identifying financial information of residents — despite a clear criminal background in fraud — will return to the prison for three-plus years for fraud she committed in that job.
Tiffany Pacheco, who also goes by the last names Tavery and Wolfe, 36, formerly of New Bedford, was sentenced in federal court in Boston by District Court
Judge Indira Talwani to 42 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. Pacheco was also ordered to pay $199,555 in restitution and forfeit $17,181.
“She stole identities and manipulated records in the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance computer system in a scheme to enrich herself and her husband without regard for the lives of those whose identities were impacted or for the funds that should have gone to those in legitimate need,” Matthew Millhollin, the special agent in charge for Homeland Security Investigations’ New England field office, said in a statement.
Questions to the commonwealth related to how she was hired for a position that provided her privileged access to personally identifying information and the ability to manipulate state benefits payouts despite her criminal record were not returned Friday afternoon.
Pacheco was served up two years in the federal pen by a judge in west Texas. Her two years of supervised release following that stint was revoked — and she was sentenced to another year in prison — in March 2019 when she was caught passing bad checks. She was finally released on Feb. 19, 2020.
Roughly a month later, she applied for an entry-level job at the Massachusetts Department of Unemployment Assistance, or DUA, listing her current position as a “freelance legal researcher.”
She listed her last job as a GED teacher, but even a cursory background check would have revealed the contact information pointed to the Hazelton prison in West Virginia, according to court documents. That’s the same prison made famous in 2018 as the site where Whitey Bulger brutally met his end during the time she was incarcerated there.
She got the job and very quickly thereafter used her privileges to update pandemic unemployment benefits claims for both her and her husband, Arthur Pacheco — who was doing time in Texas — and benefits for identities she had stolen. In all, the feds say she took nearly $200,000 in her schemes.
Further, Tiffany Pacheco directed a Texas friend, Donna Wasson, to use the DUA online portal to access and manage fake claims on her behalf.
Arthur Pacheco was sentenced in November to a year in prison, three years of supervised release and to forfeit $7,491.
Wasson was sentenced last month to a year and a half in prison and two years of supervised release, and to pay restitution and forfeiture of $5,437.