A Montgomery County woman has pleaded guilty in federal court to her role in a large unemployment insurance fraud scheme tied to pandemic relief programs.
Vanessa Valdez, 42, of Burtonsville, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland. Federal prosecutors say the scheme took place between at least May 2020 and September 2021, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. During that period, Valdez and her co-conspirators fraudulently obtained unemployment insurance benefits authorized under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.
According to public documents, the group used personal identifying information belonging to other individuals to submit false unemployment claims to the Maryland Department of Labor. The benefits were intended to assist people who were unemployed or underemployed due to the national emergency, but instead were used for personal enrichment…