NEWARK, NJ — A Newark woman was sentenced May 17 to three years in prison for stealing checkbooks and credit cards from the mail while employed as a U.S. Postal Service clerk and for filing fraudulent applications for small business loans, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger announced.
Janel Blackman, 42, previously pleaded guilty by videoconference before U.S. District Judge Susan D. Wigenton to an information charging her with one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and one count of making false statements to the U.S. Small Business Administration.
According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court, from February 2019 to May 2020, Blackman conspired to obtain money from victim financial institutions fraudulently, by, among other things, stealing credit cards and blank checkbooks from a post office in Summit, where she was employed as a clerk, and providing them to conspirators in exchange for cash. Blackman’s conspirators then fraudulently forged the signatures of the account holders and negotiated the checks by making them payable to individuals, some of whom were New Jersey high school students who had given the conspirators access to their accounts, also in exchange for cash. Blackman’s conspirators deposited the fraudulent checks online and at various bank ATMs throughout New Jersey and later withdrew funds from the bank accounts before the victim financial institutions identified the checks as fraudulent and could block further withdrawals. Blackman and her conspirators obtained and attempted to obtain approximately $366,000 from victim financial institutions.
From July 2020 to February 2021, Blackman also filed fraudulent applications for Economic Injury Disaster Loans, which are intended for small businesses experiencing substantial financial disruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The applications were for businesses that did not exist.
Three of Blackman’s conspirators have pleaded guilty and were sentenced: Tashon Ragan, 22, of Hillside, to 33 months in prison; Jahaad Flip, 22, of Newark, to 28 months in prison; and Jeffrey Bennett, 27, of Irvington, to four years in prison.
In addition to the prison term, Wigenton sentenced Blackman to three years of supervised release and ordered restitution of $61,438.
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