More troubles are brewing for suspended aide to Ogun Governor Abidemi Rufai, who was indicted for alleged conspiracy, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
The Nation reports Rufai was arrested at the JFK airport in New York on May 14 over alleged $350,000 COVID-19 unemployment fraud in the United States.
The prosecutor submitted 97,000-page materials at the U.S. District for the Western District of Washington at Tacoma, on July 26.
The indictment alleges that Rufai used the stolen identities of more than 100 Washington residents to file fraudulent claims with the Employment Security Department (ESD) for pandemic-related unemployment benefits.
Acting US Attorney Tessa M. Gorman had said Rufai filed fraudulent unemployment claims with Hawaii, Wyoming, Massachusetts, Montana, New York, and Pennsylvania, using variations of a single email address in a manner intended to evade automatic detection by fraud systems.
The agreed application filed on August 3, 2021, apparently based its assessment of the complexity of the case on the volume and nature of the evidence filed by the prosecution.
“On July 26, 2021, the government produced approximately 97,000 pages of material.
“In addition, the government is in the process of executing two additional electronic search warrants.
“The discovery includes electronic documents in a variety of formats,” the document stated in part.
It added much of the material “contains personal identifying information or sensitive financial information.”
Rufai was arraigned before the court on June 25, 2021 where he pleaded not guilty to all counts.
The court then scheduled trial for August 31, 2021 and set a pretrial motions deadline of July 23, 2021.
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