GREENBELT, MD—A Maryland woman has been convicted in a scheme to obtain U.S. passports for children who were fathered by a Ghanaian national, who prosecutors say posed as the absent parent.

Charmaine Brown, 45, of Lusby, was found guilty of conspiracy to commit passport fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, bankruptcy fraud and making a false statement in bankruptcy proceedings, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Prosecutors say Brown and her husband, Andrews Oduro Brown, a Ghanaian national who moved to the U.S. in 2013, defrauded creditors and a bankruptcy trustee by filing a fraudulent Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition in 2018 seeking to discharge thousands of dollars in debts and tax obligations owed to the state of Maryland.

Brown is also accused of submitting fraudulent passport applications for several children, including one who is a U.S. citizen, using the photos of another child, who was born in Ghana, on those applications.

The two also received payments from the state’s Child Care Scholarship Program to which they were not entitled, prosecutors say. Brown faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison on the passport fraud charge and 20 years for the wire fraud charge, and a maximum of five years in prison on the bankruptcy fraud charge.

Oduro Brown pleaded guilty last week to a similar indictment. He was sentenced to two years and three months in prison.

This article was written with the assistance of AI and reviewed by a human editor.

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