Former City of Nashua Volunteer Sentenced to 18 Months in Prison

          CONCORD, N.H. – Acting United States Attorney John J. Farley announced today that Dana Michelle Lawrence, 43, of Nashua has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for using another person’s social security number.

          According to court documents and statements made during a lengthy hearing in U.S. District Court yesterday, in 2006, Lawrence completed consecutive one-year prison terms for fraud-related offenses she committed in New York and Rhode Island.  After Lawrence was released from a New York prison, she was required to serve a nine-year period of probation in connection with the Rhode Island case and pay restitution totaling more than $47,000 to the victims of that case.  However, shortly after Lawrence completed the prison sentence, she absconded from supervision and a warrant was ultimately issued for her arrest.

           Using an alias, “Genevieve Kaplan,” in November 2016, Lawrence began working as a volunteer for the City of Nashua, preparing grant applications. Last May, the Nashua Police Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation were told that “Kaplan” tried to obtain routing and account numbers for bank accounts that belonged to the City.  The NPD and FBI discovered Lawrence’s true identity and obtained a copy of a lease application that “Kaplan” used to rent an apartment in Nashua. On the application, “Kaplan” used a social security number assigned to another person.  She was arrested for that federal offense on May 11, 2017.  She pleaded guilty on August 11, 2017.

          During the 11-year period that Lawrence was a fugitive from justice, she used a number of aliases, social security numbers that belonged other people, falsely claimed to be a graduate of an Ivy League law school with access to substantial sums of money.  She moved to different states in order to steal money from people she befriended, businesses that employed her, charitable organizations, and other entities.

          The Federal Bureau of Investigation, Social Security Administration, Office of Inspector General, and the Nashua Police Department investigated the case.

           The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Robert Kinsella and Anna Dronzek.

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