Concord, NH – Attorney General Gordon J. MacDonald and Department of Employment Security Commissioner George Copadis announce that Patrick Buchanan of Tilton, New Hampshire, pleaded guilty and was sentenced on January 24, 2019, in the Hillsborough County Superior Court – Southern District, on one count of unemployment compensation fraud, a class A misdemeanor.

Between February 14, 2015 and September 13, 2015, Mr. Buchanan filed for 13 weeks of unemployment compensation benefits while knowingly failing to report his employment in order to obtain or increase his benefits. As a result, he fraudulently received $4,109.00 in unemployment benefits.

Mr. Buchanan was sentenced to 12 months in the house of corrections, with all but 10 days deferred for six months and then suspended for two years, conditioned on good behavior, the use of his likeness in the Department of Employment Security Benefits Rights Interview which discusses the ramifications of committing unemployment fraud, and is disqualified from receiving benefits for 52 weeks. He was ordered to repay all of the benefits that he received during his 13 weeks of filing for unemployment, plus a 20% penalty, totaling $5,007.60.

The Department of Employment Security provides unemployment compensation benefits to eligible claimants who are unemployed through no fault of their own. The Department investigates and prosecutes both criminal and civil unemployment compensation fraud with the goal of protecting New Hampshire's unemployment compensation trust fund.