Attorney General Anthony G. Brown today announced the indictment of Shanell Angelia West, 45, of Essex, Maryland, in two separate cases involving theft and insurance fraud.
In the first case, West was allegedly involved in a theft scheme related to her former employment at the Maryland Department of Labor. She is charged with theft scheme with a value between $1,500 and $25,000, counterfeiting of private instruments and documents, issuing of counterfeit private instruments and documents, and misconduct in office. The charges stem from a scheme in which West, a former clerk at the Maryland Department of Labor, allegedly abused her position to steal funds from state licensees. West, whose duties included processing business licensing fees and fine payments to various state licensing boards, kept or made copies of checks payable to the state, altered them, and then deposited them into personal bank accounts. After the Department of Labor terminated her, West allegedly continued to deposit forged versions of checks that she had obtained while working there. In the second case, West allegedly filed a fraudulent insurance claim involving her former job with the Maryland Department of Labor. She is charged with fraudulent insurance acts of $300 or more, identity fraud of $1,500 or more, and forgery. The charges stem from an insurance claim that West filed for wages she purportedly lost from her state employment after missing work from injuries sustained in a car accident. West claimed that she missed more than two weeks of work in June and July 2023, when, in fact, she had been terminated by the Department of Labor in 2022. To substantiate her claim, West allegedly submitted a document to her insurer, containing a forged signature of a former colleague.
The defendant’s cases will be heard in Baltimore County Circuit Court. A criminal indictment is merely an accusation of wrongdoing, and a defendant is presumed innocent until the state proves the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. In making today’s announcement, Attorney General Brown thanked his Criminal Division.
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