A federal jury in Utica, N.Y., has convicted a New Jersey woman and her Colombian husband of running a sham nonprofit that billed government transit and homeless-aid programs for work it never did, the Justice Department announced Friday. Jael Watts, 45, of Alloway, N.J., and Luis Pino-Copete, 42, of Bogota, Colombia, were found guilty of every crime charged against them after a trial that ran several weeks.
Their company, Pearl Transit Corporation, claimed to employ drivers across the country who gave rides to elderly and disabled people and did street outreach for the homeless. In reality, Pearl Transit employed no such drivers and provided none of those services, the department said. From July 2019 through October 2025, Watts built payroll and client records out of the stolen identities of real people and sent them to the state and local offices that pass along federal money, including the Federal Transit Administration's Section 5310 program for seniors and people with disabilities and the Community Development Block Grant and Emergency Solutions Grant programs run by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Some of the people listed as riders were dead on the dates they supposedly rode. Some of the listed drivers had no license and had never driven a car.
All told, the couple sought more than $13 million in reimbursements and collected more than $1.6 million, according to the department. Gwinnett County, Ga., paid out $529,500 in block grant money and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority paid $429,885, the two largest sums, while Kern County, Calif., and the city of Raleigh, N.C., accounted for the rest. Prosecutors said bank records showed the money went to more than $100,000 in Porsche rentals, more than $100,000 at the Italian luxury label Loro Piana in Manhattan and a nearly yearlong stretch of travel in 2024 that took in Colombia, Aruba and four months in Europe.
The scheme came apart in New York. Pearl Transit signed a 2024 contract with the state Department of Transportation to provide rides for seniors and people with disabilities in Suffolk, Putnam, Rockland and Westchester counties, paid for with a federal transit grant. When the company billed the state, auditors in Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli's office found inconsistencies in its invoices, the comptroller's office said in October 2025, when Watts was first indicted. The couple answered the audit with more false paperwork built on stolen identities, according to the Justice Department, and the comptroller's office brought in the U.S. Transportation Department's inspector general, which referred the case to federal prosecutors. DiNapoli, who appeared with federal officials at a news conference on the case, said New York did not lose any money, though several other states did, WNYT reported. When the indictment of both defendants was announced in January, CBS6 Albany reported that the fraud had been caught before any money was lost.
Watts married Pino-Copete in Colombia in 2023, and he joined the scheme the following January, prosecutors said. He came to the United States in January 2025 on a visa issued the month before, and his part grew after Watts was arrested and charged with wire fraud that July. He was charged in December 2025 and held until trial. In September 2025, while Watts was being held in the Albany County Correctional Facility, the two worked to submit false documents seeking $50,000 in federal funds from the city of San Bernardino, Calif., the department said. Prosecutors also said the couple claimed block grant reimbursements for free dentures supposedly given to homeless people, when they were actually printing dentures at home on what the department called an unsanitary 3-D printer and charging homeless clients to scan their mouths and fit the dentures.
The department announced the verdict under the name Operation Thunder Hole and said the case is part of President Trump's Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, a government-wide effort chaired by Vice President JD Vance to root out fraud, waste and abuse in federal benefit programs. The announcement came from the department's National Fraud Enforcement Division, whose creation it announced in April; assistant U.S. attorneys in the Northern District of New York prosecuted the case. "These convictions send a clear message that those who exploit federal programs for personal gain will be held fully accountable," said Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald, who leads the division. WNYT reported, citing authorities, that some of the stolen identities belonged to people in the Capital Region, and quoted McDonald: "Defeating fraud isn't only about protecting money, it's also about protecting victims of fraud."
The defendants contested the case before trial. U.S. District Judge Anthony J. Brindisi denied their request to postpone the trial in September and, after the jury was seated, turned down their motions challenging both the makeup of the jury pool and the impartiality of the jurors, court records show. An earlier order in the case, from April, was mailed to Watts as a defendant representing herself.
Watts was convicted of making a false statement, five counts of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft. Together, the two were convicted of wire fraud conspiracy, a false document charge and aggravated identity theft. Brindisi has scheduled sentencing for Jan. 21, 2027. Each faces a mandatory minimum of two years in prison and up to 20 years, along with restitution of at least $1.9 million, and Pino-Copete, who is not a U.S. citizen, faces deportation once any prison term ends.