New York Woman Admits to Scamming More Than $180K from Jewish National Fund
A suburban New York woman admitted to stealing another person’s identity in order to scam more than $180,000 from the Jewish National Fund.
Marie Augustin, 42, of Westbury, Long Island, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Nassau County Court to third-degree larceny and first-degree identity theft, the The Associated Press reported.
Prosecutors said Augustin used a fake driver’s license in another person’s name and opened several bank accounts in the names of companies contracting with the Israel charity in order to cash checks stolen from the group’s office in Rockville Centre, L.I.
Augustin first came to the attention of authorities when she deposited a stolen check for $71,239.24 and then tried to withdraw the cash from the account.
She deposited two other large checks into other fake accounts, according to the Nassau County District Attorney. The identity theft victim had no ties to the JNF, the district attorney said, according to Long Beach Patch.
Augustin is expected to be sentenced on Sept. 29 to two consecutive terms of nine months in jail and required to pay $180,577.48 to the JNF.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Make a Passover Gift Today!
Dive In
-
Sports Israeli mom ‘made it easy’ for new NHL player to make history
-
Fast Forward FSU shooting suspect used neo-Nazi imagery on social media, ADL finds
-
Fast Forward Pope Francis’ final speech called for ceasefire and hostage release in Gaza war
-
Fast Forward Israeli army fires deputy commander after finding ‘operational errors’ in killing of 15 Gazans
Most Popular
- 1
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 2
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 3
Fast Forward Suspected arsonist intended to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a sledgehammer, investigators say
- 4
Opinion What Jewish university presidents say: Trump is exploiting campus antisemitism, not fighting it
In Case You Missed It
-
Sports Israeli mom ‘made it easy’ for new NHL player to make history
-
Communications The Forward Announces Gifts of Domains Yiddish.com and Yiddish.org by Elie Hirschfeld and his wife Sarah Hirschfeld, MD
-
Culture How this Marc Chagall painting explains Pope Francis’ soul
-
Opinion He’s one of Israel’s worst extremists. So why is Yale legitimizing him?
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.