Jail term after dead person's identity used for wage subsidy fraud
02 August 2024.
A man has been sentenced to 12 months in prison after using 10 different identities, one for a person who was deceased, to apply for $65,609.60 in COVID-19 Wage Subsidy payments.
Adam James Letchford admitted four charges of dishonest use of a document and one representative charge for the same offence.
Letchford made 14 applications to the COVID-19 Wage Subsidy Scheme and was successful with four of them, receiving $28,118.40 between April and June, 2020.
He was sentenced on 31 July in Christchurch District Court by Judge Tom Gilbert, who used a start point of 2 years and 6 months in prison.,
Judge Gilbert applied discounts for guilty pleas, and for personal factors such as the work the defendant has done since the offending, which brought the end sentence to 19 months prison.
However, Letchford is already in prison for other charges so Judge Gilbert said his total sentence needed to be considered.
He was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment to be served in addition to his current prison term.
Reparation of $5000 was ordered on one of the charges. Judge Gilbert noted that full reparation was not realistic.
A total of 23 people have been sentenced in wage subsidy cases, another 48 people are still before the courts, and more than $826 million* has been repaid. For more information on MSD’s programme of work on wage subsidy fraud and integrity, please see here.
*figures as at 12 July
