Raymond Wade, 43, of Morrisville, Pennsylvania, and Dwayne Reddon, 40, of Trenton, New Jersey, have pleaded guilty to roles in a conspiracy that deposited or tried to deposit more than 100 Treasury and commercial checks worth over $11 million. Many of the Treasury checks were refunds issued under the Employee Retention Credit, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey.
Wade pleaded guilty on Sept. 28, 2026, and Reddon on Sept. 29, both before U.S. District Judge Michael A. Shipp in Trenton. Each admitted to a one-count information charging conspiracy to commit bank fraud, which carries up to 30 years in prison and a fine of up to $1 million, or twice the gross gain or loss.
The checks were stolen, prosecutors said, and the conspirators deposited them at banks in New Jersey and Pennsylvania from March 2023 through June 2025. The people with the most at stake are the payees: businesses and individuals who were owed a Treasury refund or a commercial payment and whose names were used by someone else to get the money out of a bank.
Wade is due to be sentenced on Dec. 17, 2026, and Reddon on Feb. 9, 2027.
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How the payees were impersonated
The release says the conspirators impersonated the businesses or individuals named on the checks. They often did it by acquiring business documents in the payees’ names, and some opened fraudulent bank accounts to take the deposits. Once a check cleared, the defendants withdrew the money and split the proceeds among themselves.
The checks included U.S. Department of the Treasury payments. The Employee Retention Credit was a pandemic-era IRS program meant to encourage businesses to keep employees on payroll, and the refunds it produced were paid as Treasury checks. The release describes “many” of the Treasury checks as ERC refunds without saying how many, and it does not split the $11 million between Treasury and commercial checks.
The conspiracy ran for 28 months, from March 2023 through June 2025, and crossed a state line: the banks that took the deposits were in both New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The release gives the totals for the whole conspiracy, not for any one defendant, so the \$11 million is the group’s figure rather than Wade’s or Reddon’s individual share.
The 30-year maximum for conspiracy to commit bank fraud is a statutory ceiling. The judge sets the actual sentence at the hearing, and Wade’s sentencing is set for Dec. 17 and Reddon’s for Feb. 9.
Ten pleas, two defendants still pending
Wade and Reddon are the latest of ten defendants to plead guilty. Eight others pleaded guilty between July 21 and Aug. 4, 2026, according to an earlier release from the same office dated Aug. 11. They were Britany Brown, 39, of Philadelphia; Clarence Semmon, 42, and Joseph Graves-Carmichael, 43, both of Trenton; Andrew Hooper, 38, of New Brunswick; Thomas Lee, 56, of Beverly; Patricia Kearse, 47, of Philadelphia; Shabazz Rouzard, 34, of Ewing; and John Gerard Ebert, 42, of Hamilton.
Those eight are scheduled to be sentenced between Dec. 7 and Dec. 17, 2026. Two more people, Wayne Bessant, 45, of Hamilton, and Ryan Small, 33, of Ewing, still face pending charges in the case. A charge is an allegation, and each is presumed innocent unless convicted.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office summarized the latest pleas this way: “Two more defendants have admitted to their roles in an $11 million conspiracy to defraud banks by depositing stolen checks and withdrawing the funds.”
Who investigated the Treasury check scheme
The release places the case inside a wider federal push. It notes that the Justice Department announced a National Fraud Enforcement Division on April 7 and cites the President’s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, chaired by Vice President J.D. Vance.
U.S. Attorney Robert Frazer announced the pleas. Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin D. Bleiberg and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Alanna M. Jereb of the Economic Crimes Unit in Newark are prosecuting.
The investigators came from across the federal government: the FBI’s Newark-Trenton office, Homeland Security Investigations in Cherry Hill, IRS Criminal Investigation in Newark, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in Philadelphia.
Following the sentencing dates and the Treasury-check angle
The Justice Department’s own press release on the pleas is the free official record and lists the sentencing dates. It also carries the National Center for Disaster Fraud hotline, 866-720-5721, which it gives for reporting attempted COVID-19 fraud, along with a web form.
Businesses that were expecting an Employee Retention Credit refund and want to understand how the checks in this case were intercepted can start with the release’s description: the conspirators posed as the payee, backed by business documents in the payee’s name. The sentencing hearings in December and February will show what punishments the court attaches to that conduct.
The totals stay fixed in the record: more than 100 Treasury and commercial checks, over $11 million, ten guilty pleas in the case and two defendants still awaiting resolution as of the Oct. 2 announcement.
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This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by The Financial Wire’s editorial team.
Warren Cohen is a finance writer based in Phoenix, Arizona, covering personal finance topics including credit, banking, and beginner investing. He earned his degree in business administration from Arizona State University and began his career working in consumer finance, where he gained direct experience with lending and credit systems. He now writes for personal finance websites and fintech platforms, focusing on clear, practical content that helps readers make informed financial decisions.
