A Rochester man was sentenced to 51 months in federal prison for fraud and money laundering involving unauthorized credit-card payments, pandemic relief loans, unemployment benefits and a romance-fraud scheme.
Timothy Wadsworth, 35, was convicted of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering and sentenced by U.S. District Judge Frank Geraci Jr., according to a U.S. Attorney's Office release.
The court ordered $810,965.19 in restitution and, separately, forfeiture of $810,956.19 in fraud proceeds, prosecutors said. The schemes produced about $2,059,893 in combined actual and intended losses.
Unauthorized payments moved through bank and Bitcoin accounts
The conspiracy ran from March 2020 through September 2021. Prosecutors said Wadsworth obtained credit-card account numbers from co-conspirators and processed transactions the account holders had not authorized.
From March 10 through May 15, 2020, he used a Stripe merchant account to attempt 310 payments totaling $1,673,578. Of those, 116 were initially successful, totaling $730,728.22.
Wadsworth transferred the money from Stripe to accounts he owned at HSBC and Evolve Federal Credit Union. He then moved a portion to Coinbase, bought Bitcoin and sent it to outside addresses used by co-conspirators.
The transfers often exceeded $10,000. Between April 22 and April 28, 2020, three transfers from Stripe to his HSBC account were for $49,419.99, $45,501.85 and $53,496.75.
False applications brought pandemic relief payments
Wadsworth and others submitted nine false Economic Injury Disaster Loan applications between May 13, 2020, and May 5, 2021. The applications misrepresented business revenue and operations, information used to determine eligibility.
Three applications were approved, bringing $161,200 into Wadsworth's bank accounts, prosecutors said.
He also applied for six Paycheck Protection Program loans totaling $91,219 between March 7 and April 26, 2021. Two were funded, paying $20,833 and $20,416 into his account. Those applications likewise contained false business information.
From May 2020 through September 2021, Wadsworth fraudulently received about $65,896 in unemployment benefits from New York, Washington state and the Department of Labor. Prosecutors said he was ineligible for unemployment payments throughout that period.
A widow lost $42,000 in a romance scheme
A recently widowed woman met someone on Facebook who claimed to work on an oil rig and requested $42,000 for travel back to the United States.
She was directed to send the money to Wadsworth's bank account and wired it March 20, 2020. Prosecutors said Wadsworth also defrauded six other victims out of $26,000 through his schemes.
The FBI, Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation, New York State Department of Financial Services and New York State Department of Labor investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Katelyn Hartford prosecuted it.
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