A former New Jersey State Museum employee has been charged with collecting over $31,000 in unemployment benefits while working full-time for the state.
Shavion Brooks, a 37-year-old Trenton resident, faces a criminal complaint of theft, falsifying and tampering with public records, and lying for 58 weeks in 2020 and 2021. He’s accused of using the Department of Labor website to falsely certify weekly claims.
“As alleged, the defendant took thousands of dollars in benefits meant to help folks who are out of work while she was getting paid full time by the State, and then she lied about it,” said Attorney General Matt Platkin. “As these charges attest, we take maintaining the public’s trust in government, and the stewardship of public resources, seriously.”
According to state prosecutors, Brooks had insisted she was the victim of identity theft and denied making any illegal claims. The funds were deposited into Brooks’ bank account.
She allegedly insisted she was the victim of identity theft and had not filed the claims. But investigators uncovered evidence showing the unemployment funds were deposited into the same personal bank account that received her State paychecks, with withdrawal slips signed by Brooks herself.
The announcement of charges against Brooks followed an investigation by the embattled Office of Public Integrity and Accountability, a move that allows them to slightly recover from a humiliating ruling yesterday, where a judge dismissed indictments against fourteen corrections officers accused of beating women at a state prison because of OPIA’s errors.
