Aide to Democratic Rep. Danny Davis indicted for pandemic fraud
A longtime aide to Democratic Rep. Danny Davis has been indicted for claiming unemployment benefits during the coronavirus pandemic, even though he worked for Congress the entire time.
Prosecutors said Gerard Moorer applied for benefits in May 2020 and continued collecting the taxpayer-funded checks for 16 months, walking away with $31,887 in ill-gotten money.
Mr. Moorer, 42, faces three counts of wire fraud.
No attorney was listed in court records, and an email to his congressional address was not immediately returned Wednesday evening.
The indictment states that Mr. Moorer claimed he had not been employed by the federal government since October 1, 2018.
However, according to Legistorm.com, he has worked for Mr. Davis, an Illinois Democrat, since 2008 and has served as deputy district director since 2013.
His salary was $55,300 in 2000 and $52,000 in 2021, years prosecutors said he received unemployment benefits.
In 2023, his salary jumped to $73,396, according to Legistorm data.
Mr. Moorer himself was a candidate for a seat in the Illinois House of Representatives, losing the Democratic primary in 2020.
He is the latest in a long line of government employees accused of profiting from the pandemic.
Former Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, a Florida Democrat, resigned her seat last month after her colleagues concluded she had siphoned ill-gotten money from a pandemic contract for her family health care business into her first congressional campaign.
She had said she was not involved in the company collecting a payment of about $5 million from Florida in lieu of the roughly $50,000 she was owed. House investigators said $3.6 million of that money went to his campaign.
Others, ranging from federal employees at the IRS and the Small Business Administration to employees of local workforce agencies, have also been ensnared in pandemic fraud cases.
For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resources page.
