Felonies dropped against Erie firefighter accused of keeping improper unemployment funds
Erie County prosecutors have dropped felony charges filed against a veteran City of Erie firefighter accused by the Pennsylvania State Police of keeping thousands of dollars in unemployment compensation he should not have received while he was still working.
Corey Delio, 48, waived to court a second-degree misdemeanor count of unsworn falsification to authorities at his preliminary hearing before Erie 6th Ward District Judge Timothy Beveridge on Thursday morning. Under an agreement that led to the waiver, prosecutors withdrew third-degree felony counts of theft by deception-failed to correct, theft by unlawful taking, receiving stolen property, and theft of property lost, mislaid or delivered by mistake.
More: State police charge Erie firefighter with keeping thousands in improper unemployment funds
Delio will pay restitution in the case in an amount that is to be determined, according to prosecutors. He is also expected to apply for Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition, a program of probation for first-time nonviolent offenders in which successful participants are left without a criminal record in their case, Assistant District Attorney Gregory Reichert said in court. The Erie County District Attorney's has discretion on who goes on ARD, and Reichert said the commonwealth will consider Delio's application once made.
A trooper with the state police Bureau of Criminal Investigations Organized Crime Unit filed the charges against Delio on June 13, accusing Delio in a criminal complaint of collecting and depositing 11 checks totaling $7,428 that were issued by the Pennsylvania Unemployment Compensation Benefit Account for weeks when Delio was employed by the city and was not entitled to receive the money.
Information in the affidavit of probable cause filed with Delio's complaint, however, alleges that Delio may have received nine weeks of unemployment funds at a rate of $569 and two weeks of funds at a rate of $869, which totals $6,859.
According to information in Delio's complaint, the City of Erie's human resources department learned in July 2021 that many city employees had fraudulent unemployment claims filed in their names, and that those employees were instructed on how to report the fraudulent claims. Delio was advised of a fraudulent claim in his name, and human resources officials notified the local unemployment office about the fraudulent claim, the trooper wrote in the affidavit.
Human resources officials received in August 2022 an unemployment claim statement which suspected that Delio may have received weeks of unemployment funds, and he was contacted in regard to the fraud claim, according to the affidavit. Investigators wrote that Delio responded to human resources by email stating he mailed the checks back.
According to the affidavit, human resources officials met with an unemployment representative who stated there were a list of payments made to Delio, and that 11 checks were mailed to his home address. When state police obtained search warrants for Delio's bank accounts in April, investigators received copies of eight checks that were deposited into one account and three checks that were deposited into another account, the trooper wrote in the affidavit.
Delio, who was hired onto the Erie Bureau of Fire in 2008, told the Erie Times-News after the charges were filed that the matter was a misunderstanding.
Contact Tim Hahn at thahn@timesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ETNhahn.
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Felonies dropped against Erie firefighter in improper benefits case
