Feds say stealing and altering checks wasn't enough for Mission Hill gang member; he's now also charged with fraudulently obtaining Covid-19 relief funds

An alleged member of the Mission Hill Gang who is already faces charges with his pals that they stole checks out of mailboxes, altered and cashed them faces new federal allegations that he collected pandemic unemployment and payroll funds based on bogus statements and forged Social Security cards.

Tyler "Bigbodybenzi" Brimage, 28 and a convicted forger, was charged with two counts of wire fraud and three counts of bank fraud in a federal "information" filed in US District Court in Boston last week. Court records show he is scheduled for a plea hearing on those charges on Monday.

Last August, he and several other alleged Mission Hill gang members were arrested on charges they fished checks out of postal boxes, starting in Wellesley, dissolved the amounts and payees and wrote checks to themselves - in his case, with conspiracy to commit wire and bank fraud and conspiracy to steal and possess stolen mail.

The new charges come in an "information" filed by prosecutors in US District Court last week.

The document alleges Brimage started his Covid-19 fraud with an application for state pandemic unemployment payments in 2020. In his application, Brimage claimed he was about to start a new fulltime job when the pandemic struck and the job was canceled. In fact, the feds charge, Brimage "was incarcerated at the Norfolk County Jail in Massachusetts, from February 25, 2020, to June 25, 2020."

The state paid him $21,279 in pandemic unemployment between Aug. 6 and Nov. 25 of that year, when DUA cut off his payments. Inmates weren't eligible for unemployment payments.

But Brimage, the document states, was ready for that possibility: On Nov. 16, he submitted another pandemic unemployment claim, with his real name but a fake Social Security number, and this time claiming he had actually contracted Covid-19. On Nov. 18 - after he answered state doubts about his veracity by submitting photos of him holding fake documents - the state paid him $21,879, only to suspend his account on Dec. 2.

Brimage didn't stop. On May 13, 2021, he filed an application for a Payroll Protection Plan loan/grant, allegedly to help keep his barber shop, the one he claimed he earned $101,063 from in 2019, open.

A PPP lender approved his application and on June 8, 2021, deposited $20,832 into one of his bank accounts, according to the document, which adds that Brimage answered "no" to a question on whether he had pleaded or been found guilty of any crime involving "fraud, bribery, embezzlement, or a false statement in a loan application or an application for federal financial assistance," the document charges.

In fact, prosecutors charge, Brimage had been convicted of credit-card fraud over $1,200 on Feb. 28, 2020 in Boston Municipal Court and four counts of forgery of a promissory note on Feb. 13, 2020 in Roxbury court.

After getting the money, the feds say, Brimage promptly spent it all on "CashApp transfers, food purchases, purchases at GameStop, Sneaker Junkies, hotel rooms, and jewelry" - just three week's later, his account balance was -$7.97. The feds say: "These charges are not consistent with expenses for "payroll costs, rent/mortgage interest, utilities."

Brimage proved less successful with forged checks. According to the document, Brimage tried to deposit a city of Boston payroll check for $16,427.23 into one of his bank accounts on Oct. 21, 2020 - only to have the bank deny the deposit as fraudulent the next day. Brimage, the feds say, never worked for the city and the check number was not part of the city's normal sequence.

Innocent, etc.