NY nurse sentenced to 5 years for scamming $11M from student loan forgiveness program for people with disabilities

A New York caregiver who scammed a national indebtedness forgiveness programme for radical surviving with disabilities retired of $11.2 cardinal was sentenced to 5 years successful situation connected Wednesday.

Federal Judge Cathy Seibel handed the condemnation down to Catherine Seemer, 44, of Elmsford, astatine a White Plains national tribunal proceeding successful summation to a word of 3 years post-release supervision.

Seemer carried retired the fraud by submitting 125 fraudulent applications nether the national Total and Permanent Disability pupil indebtedness discharge programme by falsely impersonating 12 antithetic doctors betwixt June 2017 and March 2022, according to tribunal records.

The indebtedness forgiveness programme operated by the Department of Education discharges pupil indebtedness obligations of radical surviving with imperishable disabilities, including subject veterans.

Seemer, a caregiver since 2017 who was arrested successful June 2022, represented to borrowers that she was liable for identifying and securing fiscal aid, grants, and different forms of indebtedness relief, misleading galore to judge they were eligible done their enactment of elderly, ailing, oregon household members with disabilities, according to tribunal records. She past fraudulently submitted applications connected their behalf — forging signatures and aesculapian licence numbers to falsely certify antithetic diagnoses — charging a percent of the full indebtedness magnitude discharged.

The feds said Seemer pocketed much than $635,000 successful fees done the scam, which she agreed to wage backmost successful restitution when she pleaded blameworthy to national pupil fiscal assistance fraud and aggravated individuality theft successful March 2024.

Before the sentencing, prosecutors wrote to Seibel that Seemer’s fraud “was not an isolated, mediocre determination successful a clip of need” but 1 she carried retired implicit 5 years that would derail her victims down the line.

“Years ago, each of these victims were led to judge that they had lawfully escaped themselves of tens oregon hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worthy of pupil debt. Victims person inevitably made fiscal decisions successful their lives successful the interim — beryllium it a vacation, the acquisition of a home, oregon akin expenditures,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Qais Ghafary wrote.

“They did truthful based connected the mendacious consciousness of information that they were indebtedness escaped and could spend it. The eventual reinstatement of $11.2 cardinal worthy of pupil loans volition person a seismic effect connected the fiscal well-being of these victims.”

In her sentencing submission, Seemer’s attorneys said she messed up but that her beingness had been marked by her “dedication to her household and her large compassion for others,” and elaborate trauma she suffered successful her childhood. They said she ne'er intended harm towards the borrowers she lied to, but the authorities itself.

“Although she committed fraud, Ms. Seemer intended to origin harm to the US Government and not those idiosyncratic applicants,” Seemer’s lawyers wrote.

“She solely stands acceptable to marque those individuals whole, nevertheless ironically, her intended people and the unfortunate for the Guideline’s nonaccomplishment calculation, the Government, is already oregon volition beryllium made whole.”