Veteran fraudster accused of lying to federal probation office

Alex Wood, Journal Inquirer, Manchester, Conn.
·3 min read

Apr. 21—A woman with a long record of frauds and falsehoods — including claims of serious illness that enabled her to delay a federal prison sentence by more than 1 1/2 years — is now facing accusations she's made more false statements to the U.S. Probation Office.

The woman — Aliyah Theresa Juliate Davis, formerly Theresa Juliate Sutherland, who is in her early 40s and has lived in Enfield and East Windsor — is facing accusations that she violated the conditions of her "supervised release" in a federal criminal case through the false statements to the probation office.

ACCUSED OF VIOLATIONS

DEFENDANT: Aliyah Theresa Juliate Davis, formerly Theresa Juliate Sutherland, who is in her early 40s and has lived in Enfield and East Windsor

VIOLATIONS ALLEGED: Falsely reporting a job with a Florida employer, failing to report jobs with two Connecticut employers, underpaying restitution

STATUS: Free, violation case pending in federal court

Supervising U.S. Probation Officer Abigail Mahar last month accused Davis of submitting false documentation that she had taken a job in Florida, failing to disclose two jobs with Connecticut employers that together paid more than the fictitious Florida job, and underpaying restitution as a result.

Davis was scheduled to make an initial appearance Friday in U.S. District Court in New Haven before Senior Judge Janet Bond Arterton, who was to consider whether her supervised release should be revoked, online federal court records show. The records don't show what happened at the hearing, but Davis remains free, according to a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office.

Davis' involvement with the federal courts started in 2013, when, under her former name of Sutherland, she pleaded guilty to conspiring with as many as four other women to defraud her former employer, MassMutual Financial Group, of some $240,000. Authorities said she received more than $75,000 of the money.

The scheme involved false claims for reimbursements that MassMutual offered its employees for college tuition and expenses associated with adopting children.

Because the scheme involved using birth certificates and Social Security numbers of real children, Davis also pleaded guilty to aggravated identity theft.

Davis got a 4 1/4 -year federal prison sentence for those crimes in December 2014.

She managed to delay reporting to prison until September 2016 with claims that she was seriously, even terminally, ill, buttressed by letters from doctors that she eventually admitted were forgeries.

While claiming to be seriously ill, authorities alleged, Davis had legally changed her name from Sullivan, used the new name to apply for a new passport and briefly to obtain a new driver's license, worked for four employers, collected unemployment compensation under the old name, and taken two cruises.

She pleaded guilty to four additional federal felonies based on those acts and received a partially concurrent, partially consecutive sentence that added a year to her prison sentence.

She finished the prison time and began a three-year term of supervised release in March 2020, according to the probation officer's petition to the court.

About two months later, Davis submitted a letter showing that she had been offered a $40,000-a-year job as a "site manager" with a nonprofit organization in Florida but could work remotely until her probation supervision could be transferred to Florida, according to the probation officer. Mahar reported that the U.S. attorney's office later learned Davis had interviewed with the Florida employer but was never hired.

The probation officer also said Davis was supposed to notify her office of any changes in her economic circumstances or employment but failed to report jobs with two Connecticut employers that together paid more than the income she was claiming from the Florida job. Because her restitution payments for the past frauds were set at 10% of Davis' gross income, it resulted in underpayments, the probation officer alleged.

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