Christnel Orisca, 25, of Boston, was charged with five counts of wire fraud and one count of making a false statement to a financial institution, prosecutors said in a statement.
Sentencing is scheduled for March.
Orisca, who worked at the department from late 2021 to 2024, was one of two offiers arrested on COVID fraud charges last December.
He allegedly committed the fraud prior to his employment at the sheriff’s department. Orisca was then working at a security company and a delivery company, the attorney’s office said.
According to officials, Orisca fraudulently applied for pandemic unemployment and small business loans while working full-time, collecting approximately $54,700 illegally.
In his applications for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, a federal program that provided unemployment benefits to individuals who were not eligible for regular unemployment, Orisca falsely claimed he was unemployed and had not received income, officials said.
The former officer also submitted false statements to Small Business Association-approved lenders and to the Paycheck Protection Program in order to obtain loans and later get them forgiven, prosecutors said.
Suffolk corrections officer, pleads to fraud
