> though most courts will just laugh at companies and tell them they clearly didn’t do enough due diligence, so most people trying it will be worried about being arrested in person.
There's a contradiction here, right?
There's a contradiction here, right?
If someone has never committed a crime before (which most likely, these patsies would be in that camp - it's too high risk and expensive for someone experienced to want to do themselves if they could send someone else), fear of prosecution is going to be high. After all, THEY know they're doing something wrong, even if no one else does.
Someone doing this is also very unlikely to have the direct experience managing a company, or dealing with these issues, to actually know the real risks of prosecution and likelihood of damaging consequences.
So since it's new, uncertain, potential consequences seem personally very damaging, and it's 'bad' == high fear.
They get a lot more dangerous once they've done it a few times, and the fear of the unknown wears off, and confidence starts to replace it. But since they're showing up in person, and would need (in this example) to physically be there for awhile, that's expensive, time consuming, and high risk.
Also, I fail to see how this can be prosecuted when there's no identity theft or forgery i.e. real crimes involved in this act. It can be all boiled down to being just another case of an under-qualified candidate holding a role without proper or adequate credentials due to flawed hiring procedures, or more frankly the incompetence of the decision makers inside the organization.
In this case, they were impersonating someone else. For them to get to the point of getting paid, they'd likely have to provide identity documents (including a SSN, some form of photo ID, etc.) if the company was doing their paperwork correctly. Even contractors have to cough up a SSN, and that is enough to trigger federal identity fraud charges.
If they provided real credentials and their real name, but had someone else sit in who pretended to be them to do the interviews, it gets trickier - it would still likely to be some variant of conspiracy to commit. Conspiracy at the federal level generally only requires a concrete action by a conspirator in furtherance of a crime, which with only a little squinting would likely apply here to anyone involved (including the fake interviewee).
I present to you 18 USC 1028, the federal identity fraud code. [https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1028], which provides penalties up to 5 years for a first and non-violent/non-drug related offense, or 20 years (for a second offense or other nastier qualifications). A felony, either way. It includes transferring said documents electronically.
My 'favorite' section is 7, which explicitly states that SSN, DOB, etc. count, as well.
Conspiracy would likely be under 18 USC 1346 & 1349 [https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1346] [https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1349], which makes it a crime to 'deprive another of the intangible right of honest services', or conspire with another to do so.
Either way, as I said elsewhere, I doubt anyone would be particularly interested in such prosecution unless it was very high profile for some reason. It's hard to get anyone sympathetic about a large company getting scammed by someone this way. Most companies also don't like having a reputation or PR as being scammable.
So companies should be very interested in covering their asses here. That said, it IS also a federal (and likely state) level felony, so folks SHOULD also rightly be scared to attempt it.
If the right parties were motivated, it could easily result in many years in federal prison. And it's hard to say when someone will want to make an example out of something like this.
I doubt that it really happened since as you may have hinted, no prosecutors are interested in pursuing these cases for lack of sympathy as you put it, which I can't verify, or failure of winning the case which I suspect to be the chief motive here since misrepresenting facts or exaggerating events on your resume is not a crime.
And you're wrong - lying about MATERIAL facts, events, or qualifications to get a job is a crime.
Lying that you had a dog when you were a kid (when it's not relevant), for instance? No problem. That's not likely to be a material fact.
If you're interviewing to be a host of a kids show about dogs?
A problem.
Just not one most people are willing to make a case over. There also is the court precedent about 'mere fluffery' or 'puffery' not adding up to a lie, which would need to get worked out somehow. See [https://contractslawinaction.law.miami.edu/?page_id=171]
There is a line, for instance, between exaggeration and lying, that not everyone would agree where it sits.
I forgot the link to USC 1341 (Frauds and Swindles), which is just a great read on it's own.
Regarding their request for an example -
Here is an example of a successful prosecution of someone for fraud (and tax evasion) for material lies about qualifications and job histories.
[https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2020/02/former-health-c...]
20 years for mail fraud, 5 years for tax evasion.
She was clearly going above and beyond on this front.