Sayreville Man Accused Of Illegally Collecting Unemployment

SAYREVILLE, NJ — A Sayreville man is one of 10 people accused of illegally collecting unemployment benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic.

One of the 10 was even an East Orange woman who worked for the NJ Department of Labor — the state agency that gives out unemployment benefits.

Brian Korygoski of Sayreville is charged by indictment filed March 11 with three counts of third-degree theft by deception for allegedly collecting unemployment benefits between March 22, 2020 and July 22, 2023.

Vanessa Allen of East Orange is the Dept. of Labor employee. The state says she illegally collected $56,030 in unemployment benefits during the pandemic.

The indictment alleges Allen used her official position at the Dept. of Labor to obtain benefits for herself and others. Allen allegedly made false entries into Dept. of Labor unemployment files, and accessed data from DOL computer systems without authorization.

She is charged with four counts of official misconduct (2nd degree); pattern of official misconduct (2nd degree); theft by deception and tampering with public records or information (both 3rd degree); falsifying or tampering with records (4th degree) and computer theft (3rd degree).

All 10 were indicted in March and their names were announced this week by NJ Attorney General Matt Platkin.

Platkin said his office is still investigating frauds people did during the pandemic.

"Even though it has been more than five years since the COVID-19 pandemic began, we are still uncovering cases of fraud and abuse in our New Jersey unemployment benefits program and in other programs that were created to help people financially in difficult times," said Division of Criminal Justice Director Theresa Hilton. “We will continue to investigate these cases to find those who broke the law by trying to game the system to get their hands on benefits to which they were not entitled.”