Man claims friend 'betrayed' him after pocketing unemployment benefits

Yarnell Williams is an administrator at Washington Elementary School and she faces charges of grand theft and organized fraud.

According to the probable cause affidavit, she stole and spent Antonio Thompson’s unemployment benefits in 2020.

“I never thought she’d do anything like that being we were friends for so long,” Thompson, who’s still shaken by the incident, said.

Thompson worked as a security guard and bouncer at some area businesses, when the COVID pandemic hit and his employers were forced to shut down.

“I needed money, I was out of work,” Thompson said. “So, I tried to do unemployment.”

That’s when, he said, he turned to his friend Williams for help with filling out his unemployment benefits application. A couple of months later, he said she gave him some bad news.

“You got denied,” Thompson said, claiming it led to several weeks without a paycheck or benefit.

Matthew Kaureauf/WPTV

Thompson told me he didn’t give the situation much thought until earlier this year, when he received a letter from the Internal Revenue Service, telling him he owed $1,600 hundred in taxes in from payments from the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program.

“Hey, I never received it,” Thompson said he told the IRS. “So, I started doing a little research.”

Thompson said the IRS showed some of the money from his unemployment debit card was spent in New Orleans. Then he said he looked on Williams’ Facebook page.

“And I’ll be,” Thompson exclaimed. “At that time the card was used, she was in New Orleans, spending it up, having a ball.”

This wasn’t the first time Thompson made the news at Channel 5.

He was described as a hero eight years ago after running into a burning building and saving an elderly couple in Jupiter.

WPTV

“I feel good about this, I feel good today,” said Thomas back in September 2016. “I saved a couple of lives.”

After he was forced to pay taxes on unemployment benefits, he said he never received but allegedly stolen by a friend of 15 years, this hero told me, he now struggles to pay his bills.

“I felt absolutely betrayed,” Thompson said.

He hopes he can get some of his money back through court ordered restitution.

The Palm Beach County School District told me that Williams has been placed on administrative leave.

A spokeswoman with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office said there may be more victims. If anyone is a victim of this organized fraud or theft, they should call the sheriff’s office.