Federal government prosecutors are recommending to the federal court in Seattle, Washington that a woman from American Samoa be sentenced to 36 months of imprisonment and pay restitution of more than $260,000 which the defendant stole between April 2011 and December 2018.
Forty year old, Iliganoa Theresa Lauofo, of Tacoma, Washington – who used identities of children living in American Samoa and Samoa to obtain federal benefits – pled guilty in January this year to wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and embezzlement of mail by a postal employee.
She is scheduled for sentencing tomorrow before US District Court Judge Richard A. Jones at the Seattle federal court.
Assistant U.S Attorney, Benjamin T. Diggs says in court filing that the sentence is necessary to reflect the seriousness of the offense, to impose just punishment, and to deter future fraud by those who would follow defendant’s example.
Diggs points out that the defendant committed fraud and theft “in an astonishing variety of ways”. He asserted that Lauofo “lied over and over” to the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services about her household composition and income in order to collect benefits she wasn’t entitled to.
When that wasn’t enough, Lauofo – a mother of 9 children – used stolen identities of friends and family to collect several entirely separate suites of illegitimate benefits, supporting each of her phony personas with forged and fraudulent documents.
Lauofo also used the same stolen identities, and others, to open bank and credit card accounts without their permission, and even funded those accounts with checks she stole from the mail while employed as a U.S. Postal worker.
