Tolleson man accused of stealing more than $200,000 in unemployment
By Associated Press
An unemployment application form.
LAS VEGAS (AP) - A Phoenix-area man faces up to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty in Nevada to possessing numerous California unemployment benefits debit cards all issued under different names, federal officials said.
A federal judge in Las Vegas scheduled a May 11 sentencing after 32-year-old Delashaun Dean of Tolleson, Arizona, pleaded guilty on Feb. 3 to possession of counterfeit and unauthorized access devices, officials said.
A statement issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Nevada and the U.S. Department of Labor said Dean intended to fraudulently obtain nearly $223,000 in benefits through 15 cards issued by the California Employment Development Department.
Nevada County’s employment rate ranked eighth in the state in December, according to estimates released last week by the California Employment Development Department.
The California Employment Development Department. (Courthouse News photo / Nick Cahill)
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (CN) Inmates and imposters ran up a $10 billion tab on California taxpayers’ dime during the opening stretches of the pandemic, taking advantage of the state’s dithering and deficient management of its massive unemployment benefit system, according to a new state audit.
With millions of new unemployment claims swamping the system, State Auditor Elaine Howle says the Employment Development Department buckled and issued payments for over four months without first verifying identities. As a result, the audit found that nearly 10% of the $111 billion in unemployment benefits the state paid as of December 2020 were fraudulent, including hundreds of millions to inmates.
Three people plead guilty in unemployment fraud in Santa Barbara County
January 25, 2021
By JOSH FRIEDMAN
A man and woman from San Diego stole customers’ identities from businesses across the United States, including a Santa Barbara property management firm, and used them to file fraudulent unemployment claims, which cost California taxpayers more than $2 million.
Gordon Alan Welterlen, 37, and Nicole Michelle Milan, 31, along with Rosa Maria Bradley, 40, of Santa Barbara pleaded guilty on Friday to felony charges related to the fraud, the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office announced. Another three alleged co-conspirators are also facing charges in the Santa Barbara County court case.
The California Employment Development Department. (Courthouse News photo / Nick Cahill)
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (CN) Nearly a year into a pandemic that gobbled up millions of jobs and caused double-digit jobless rates, California is still languishing through one of the largest and most costly bureaucratic failures in state history.
Despite sweeping changes promised by the governor last summer, the state’s fractured Employment Development Department, which left hundreds of thousands of freshly unemployed residents in the dark while sending billions to inmates and fraudsters, is far from fixed.
Still carrying a massive backlog of unemployment claims, a state audit released Tuesday found many of the department’s problems were self-inflicted and predicted it will continue hassling Californians long after the pandemic.