Former Maryland State Employee Indicted in Theft, Insurance Fraud Cases

Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown announced the indictment of a former state employee in two separate cases involving theft and insurance fraud.

Shanell Angelia West, of Essex, was allegedly involved in a theft scheme while working at the Maryland Department of Labor.

The charges stem from a scheme in which West allegedly stole funds from state licensees. West, whose duties included processing business licensing fees and fine payments to various state licensing boards, kept or made copies of checks payable to the state, altered them, and then deposited them into personal bank accounts. After the department terminated her, West allegedly continued to deposit forged versions of checks that she had obtained while working there.

In the second case, West allegedly filed a fraudulent insurance claim involving her former job with the labor department. The charges stem from an insurance claim that West filed for wages she purportedly lost from her state employment after missing work from injuries sustained in a car accident. West claimed that she missed more than two weeks of work in June and July 2023, when, in fact according to prosecutors, she had been terminated by the department in 2022. To substantiate her claim, West allegedly submitted a document to her insurer, containing a forged signature of a former colleague.

In the theft case, she is charged with theft scheme with a value between $1,500 and $25,000, counterfeiting of private instruments and documents, issuing of counterfeit private instruments and documents, and misconduct in office. In the insurance case, she is charged with fraudulent insurance acts of $300 or more, identity fraud of $1,500 or more, and forgery.

A criminal indictment is merely an accusation of wrongdoing, and a defendant is presumed innocent until the state proves the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

The cases will be heard in Baltimore County Circuit Court.

Topics Fraud Maryland