FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, May 1, 2019
NYPD Officer Sentenced to 2 to 6 Years in Prison and Ordered to Pay Over $93K in Restitution for Funds Received Using His Deceased Mother’s Identity
Defendant Illegally Received Compensation from Pension Fund and Social Security Benefits;
Convicted of Criminal Possession of Controlled Substance for Illegally Refilling Prescription
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez today announced that a New York City Police Officer was sentenced to two to six years in prison and ordered to repay over $93,000 in restitution for using his deceased mother’s identity to illegally receive benefits.
District Attorney Gonzalez said, “This former police officer allowed greed to overtake his principles to the point where he was willing to use his deceased mother’s identity to steal tens of thousands of dollars. He is now paying a very steep price – the loss of his job and the loss of his freedom.”
The District Attorney identified the defendant as Edward Ian St. Hill, 52, formerly of the NYPD’s 71st Precinct in Prospect Lefferts Gardens. The defendant was sentenced today by Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun to two to six years in prison. He pleaded guilty to fourth-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, second- and third-degree grand larceny, third-degree attempted criminal possession of a weapon, and official misconduct on March 29, 2019. As part of his sentencing, Hill was ordered to resign from the NYPD, and pay $55,036 to the SEIU Pension Fund and $39,014 to the Social Security Administration.
The District Attorney said that, according to the investigation, the defendant and his wife Maria Ramos, AKA Sunee St. Hill, 45, maintained the finances of the defendant’s mother, Germain St. Hill, as if she were alive for over a year and a half after she passed away on June 4, 2016. They impersonated Germain St. Hill in numerous phone calls in a vast scheme to defraud multiple financial institutions and to take possession of controlled narcotics.
The defendants caused a death certificate to be generated for Germain St. Hill that bore an incorrect Social Security number, and never notified the proper authorities to correct the error, while continuing to collect and make use of Germain St. Hill’s Social Security and pension benefit checks, which totaled more than $38,000 and $50,000, respectively. St. Hill leveraged his knowledge as an NYPD officer to generate forged NYPD paperwork, while Ramos impersonated her deceased mother-in-law in calls to various financial institutions, including the Social Security Administration and Germain St. Hill’s pension fund, to perpetuate the fraud.
Furthermore, the investigation revealed that the defendants fraudulently closed on the sale of Germaine St. Hill’s home by using falsified documents, for which they received approximately $260,000, and continued to refill Germain St. Hill’s prescription for Percocet on 14 separate occasions after she died.
Ramos pleaded guilty to third-degree grand larceny on March 29, 2019. She will be sentenced on May 29, 2019 by Judge Chun to five years’ probation and ordered to pay restitution of $55,036 to the SEIU pension and $73,374 to the Social Security Administration. her
The investigation was conducted by Sergeant Alex Nulman of the New York City Police Department, Internal Affairs Bureau, under the supervision of Lieutenant John Orecchia and Captain Joseph Profetta, also of the Internal Affairs Bureau.
The case was additionally investigated by Special Agents Jimmy Camilo and Neisha Samaroo of the Social Security Administration, Office of the Inspector General.
KCDA Financial Investigator Shaakira Calnick, of the District Attorney’s Crimes Against Revenue Bureau, assisted in the investigation.
The case was prosecuted by Senior Assistant District Attorney Peter Choi, formerly of the District Attorney’s Civil Rights Bureau, and Senior Assistant District Attorney Laura Neubauer, of the District Attorney’s Frauds Bureau, under the supervision of Assistant District Attorney Kelli Muse, formerly of the Civil Rights Bureau, and the overall supervision of Assistant District Attorney Patricia McNeill, Chief of the District Attorney’s Investigations Division.
#