QUEENS — A woman working with job seekers issued more than 800 fraudulent benefit checks worth more than $600,000, officials said.
After she was fired from her city job, she admitted in court that she went on to traffic 50 kilograms of cocaine.
Petronila Peralta, 52, who worked for the Human Resources Administration in Long Island City, claimed the payments were being made to 140 people on public assistance between 2008 and 2011, according to the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office and Department of Investigation.
“This money was intended to aid the neediest New Yorkers, including children, by helping to defray the costs of basic nutrition and housing,” U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement.
The former city worker recruited people to sign up for the public assistance and offered them money in exchange for the fraudulent benefits.
She also used a former HRA employee’s computer login to try and cover her tracks.
Peralta worked at HRA from 2005 to 2014 and was earning $42,346 in base pay annually.
After being fired in 2014 following a DOI investigation, she helped distribute more than 50 kilograms of cocaine through the mail, according to federal prosecutors.
She pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to distribute and possess cocaine. Both charges carry a maximum of 20 years in prison.
Peralta is scheduled to be sentenced in Manhattan Federal Court on April 4.
Another Queens job center supervisor was sentenced to two years in federal prison in October after stealing $1.8 million in a food-stamp scheme.
