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WESTPORT, Conn. Former Westport resident Julie Hymans, daughter of the late RTM member Ralph Hymans, faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 for fraudulently receiving more than $300,000 in unemployment benefits.
Now a Bridgeport resident, Hymans, 41, pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud on Oct. 4. The charge stems from a 14-year scheme in which she and her father received $312,804 in unemployment benefits from the state Department of Labor, David Fein, U.S. attorney for Connecticut, announced.
The scheme ran from January 1995 to April 2009. During that time, Ralph Hymans used aliases and fictitious companies to fraudulently claim unemployment benefits for himself and his daughter, Fein reported.
In 2008, the state stopped sending unemployment checks to Ralph Hymans. In January 2009, Julie Hymans contacted the state Department of Labor and requested the benefits be reinstated. In order to re-receive the benefits, she stated she had been employed by Monroe Management one of the fictitious companies and that she was entitled to benefits. She repeated this request in March 2009, prompting the state Department of Labor to mail nine unemployment checks to an address associated with her and her father.
Hymans is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 23. On March 24, Ralph Hymans pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud and faced up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. He died shortly before he was to be sentenced in June. He was a member of the Representative Town Meeting from 1991 to 1993, 1995 to 1999 and 2005 to 2007.
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