Eight people, including four Mercer County residents, have pleaded guilty to participating in an $11 million bank fraud conspiracy involving stolen U.S. Treasury and commercial checks.
The local defendants are Clarence Semmon, 42, and Joseph Graves-Carmichael, 43, both of Trenton; Shabazz Rouzard, 34, of Ewing; and John Gerard Ebert, 42, of Hamilton.
The defendants admitted conspiring to deposit stolen checks at banks in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and then withdraw and divide the proceeds, according to U.S. Attorney Robert Frazer.
All eight pleaded guilty in Trenton federal court before U.S. District Judge Michael A. Shipp to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud. Semmon and Graves-Carmichael are scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday, Dec. 9. Rouzard is scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday, Dec. 16, and Ebert is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday, Dec. 17.
The other defendants are Britany Brown, 39, of Philadelphia; Andrew Hooper, 38, of New Brunswick; Thomas Lee, 56, of Beverly; and Patricia Kearse, 47, of Philadelphia. Brown is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday, Dec. 8. Hooper and Kearse are scheduled to be sentenced Monday, Dec. 7, and Lee is scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday, Dec. 16.
According to court documents and statements made in court, the conspiracy operated from March 2023 through June 2025.
Prosecutors said the defendants deposited stolen checks, including U.S. Department of the Treasury checks, at banks throughout New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The conspirators impersonated businesses or individuals listed as the payees on the stolen checks, at times obtaining business documents in the names of the intended recipients, according to prosecutors.
They then used fraudulent business documents or opened fraudulent bank accounts to deposit the checks and split the proceeds. In all, members of the conspiracy deposited or attempted to deposit more than 100 Treasury and commercial checks totaling more than $11 million, prosecutors said.
Many of the Treasury checks were refunds issued through the Employee Retention Credit program. The Internal Revenue Service created the program during the COVID-19 pandemic to encourage businesses to keep employees on their payrolls.
Conspiracy to commit bank fraud carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison and a fine of up to $1 million, twice the gross financial gain derived from the crime or twice the financial loss sustained by victims, whichever is applicable.
The investigation involved the FBI’s Newark-Trenton Resident Agency, Homeland Security Investigations, IRS Criminal Investigation, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin D. Bleiberg of the Economic Crimes Unit in Newark is representing the government.
