Former Brunswick County Social Worker Gets Four Years in Prison For Looting Work First Program

By Alicia Cruz
The Black Urban Times

A six month investigation by the Brunswick County Sheriff’s Office and the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation into an embezzlement scheme by a former Brunswick County social worker culminated in a guilty plea by April Shawnette Stuckes that will send the former social worker to prison for at least four years, says WWAY.

Prosecutors say Stuckes, 35, looted the Brunswick County Department of Social Services Work First program while she was employed as an income maintenance social worker, then hid her thievery with doctored paperwork and phony addresses. She pleaded guilty to one felony count of obtaining property by false pretense and was sentenced to between 48 and 67 months in the North Carolina Department of Corrections.

Stuckes was employed as a social worker for the Brunswick County Work First program when she signed up fraudulent and ineligible clients. Using the names of clients she stole from her former employer and the names of friends, Stuckes created phony case files and addresses for non-existent or ineligible clients in order to enroll them in the federal Work First Family Assistance benefits program.

Vincent Saponaro, a detective in the financial division of the Brunswick County Sheriff's Office, said Stuckes obtained the names from a master list of a previous employer near Richmond, Va., containing names of people who had received federal benefits there.

Stuckes would sign the individuals up for the program, some who didn't even live in Brunswick County, and in exchange for getting them the benefits, she would ask for half the money back, investigators said.

When the checks would come in, she would pick them up at the County's post office box for bad addresses, then cash them at a small business in Wilmington telling the owner that the recipients were either invalids or shut-ins who could not cash the checks themselves. The farce lasted almost three years before Stuckes and her accomplices was busted.

She later cashed the checks, in excess of $120,000, for herself.

Stuckes, who became employed the department of social services in January 2005, was fired in April 2008 after social service employees became suspicious and alerted the State Bureau of Investigation to the possible fraud. Prosecutors say Stuckes was the ring leader of the scheme that involved six other individuals.


Francine Bland Corbett, 55, of Burgaw, North Carlina, Sharazrd Crummy; Tameka Greene, 31; Wilhelmina Greene, 56; all of Wilmington were charged in relation to the scheme.

DeJuan Antonio Green, 29, Stuckes' live-in boyfriend, was charged with one felony "count of concealment" of fact and another count of welfare fraud.

The Work First program is designed to help AFDC recipients gain education, work experience, and work-related skills that will lead to gainful employment and self-sufficiency.