Ex-fraud investigator for NYC Dept. of Homeless Services gets 27 months for COVID scam

A former fraud investigator for the New York City Department of Homeless Services will spend 27 months in prison for stealing and selling homeless people’s personal information during the COVID pandemic.

Brooklyn resident Olabanji Otufale, 41, accessed the names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and photos of city homeless people, then sold that information to Marc Lazarre, an identity thief who used their IDs to apply for COVID unemployment relief.

A Brooklyn Federal Court judge sentenced Otufale on Wednesday.

The victims had given the city their names and info to apply for social services like beds in homeless shelter and food stamps.

In October 2020, Otufale accessed a DHS database, took photos of the ID info he saw, and texted those pics to Lazarre.

Lazarre, 39, of New Jersey, then tried to file for unemployment insurance in the victims’ names, but he wasn’t always successful — some of his marks had already filed for unemployment, according to court filings. In fact, he only managed to score a measly $182 in pilfered benefits, according to prosecutors.

When his claims got rejected, he asked Otufale for new names, telling him in one text, “smfh [shaking my f—ing head] told you these bums b on it.”

Otufale and Lazarre were taking advantage of the federal CARES act, an economic stimulus package set up in the early days of the pandemic that provided more than $2 trillion in emergency COVID relief.

“The defendant abused his position of trust as a fraud investigator to access and steal vulnerable homeless victims’ personal identifying information for his personal benefit,” U.S. Attorney John J. Durham said.

Otufale and Lazarre pleaded guilty in Brooklyn Federal Court to wire fraud conspiracy and aggravated identity theft in July, the same day jury selection was supposed to start in their trial.

Lazarre has a history of identity theft and forgery convictions dating back to 2015, and at one point he took out a lease in a dead person’s name, according to the feds.

He’s slated to be sentenced in March.