LANCASTER — A Coos County Superior Court grand jury has charged a 56-year-old Berlin woman with defrauding the New Hampshire Department of Employment Security by receiving nearly $20,000 in unemployment benefits to which she was not entitled.

The grand jury indicted Peggy Phillips of Cedar Street in Berlin on a charge of fraud, accusing her of under-reporting her income between March 2010 and January 2012 in Berlin.

The grand jury said Phillips “did so to obtain or increase her benefit under RSA 282-A, when she knowingly failed to disclose the material fact that during said times she was gainfully employed and receiving higher wages than reported to DES from Granite State Independent Living when asked by DES,” according to the indictment.

By such “false representations and omissions,” Phillips obtained $19,988 to which she was not entitled, grand jurors said in the indictment.

In another indictment handed up Friday and made public Tuesday, the grand jury charged Thomas Shaheen, 19, of Twin View Drive in Carroll, with aggravated driving while intoxicated on June 17, 2011, in Whitefield.

He’s accused of driving on Forest lake road on that date while having a blood-alcohol content in excess of .20 percent, and causing a collision that resulted in serious bodily injury — cervical spine fractures and a closed head injury — to Luke Wotton, according to the indictment.

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