Unemployment scam using inmates’ names costs California $140mn

Thousands of inmates throughout California, including high-profile serial killers and murderers on death row, received millions of dollars in coronavirus pandemic relief funds between March and August.

At least 35,000 unemployment claims were fraudulently made on behalf of prison inmates during the period, costing the state $140 million in paid out benefits, according to California officials.

Over $420,000 alone was paid to some 130 death row inmates, including notorious serial killer Wayne Ford, who murdered four women before handing himself in to a California sheriff's office in 1998.

Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, the Sacramento County district attorney described the scam as “one of the biggest fraud of taxpayer dollars in California history."

Anne Marie Schubert said the scam affected every facility in California's Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, including local, state and federal institutions.

"That money was stolen from the coffers of the California government," said Schubert, who was joined by district attorneys from Kern and El Dorado counties and a US attorney.

The fraud was made possible since California, unlike other states, did not cross-check lists of inmates against unemployment claims made for lost income since the lockdown triggered by the virus began in March, she said.

The majority of the claims used prisoners' real names, addresses and social security numbers to gain debit cards that were sent to homes across California and other US states under pandemic unemployment relief schemes.

After conducting a partial cross-check within the last month, a newly formed California taskforce found that payments had been sent to "rapists and child molesters, human traffickers and other violent criminals in our state prisons."

"Quite frankly, the inmates are mocking us," added Schubert, who sent a letter to Governor Gavin Newsom on Monday co-signed by nine district attorneys.

Newsom also issued a statement later Tuesday calling the fraud "absolutely unacceptable" and promising to "direct as many resources as needed to investigate and resolve this issue speedily."

Meanwhile, Vern Pierson, president of the California District Attorneys Association, said at the briefing that the fraud is occurring in "essentially every [prison] institution."

"It is open and notorious within the correctional facilities, being discussed about how 'everybody's getting paid and we need to get ours,' things along those lines."

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