(FOX40.COM) — A Tracy woman was sentenced to nine years in prison for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, the U.S. Department of Justice said this week.
The DOJ said the woman defrauded the unemployment insurance benefit program of roughly $1.1 million during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Between April 2020 and August 2021, the woman filed over 70 claims with the California Employment Development Department for different people for whom she had collected the names, birth dates, and Social Security numbers.
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The DOJ said that the filings were fraudulent either because “the claimants were not unemployed, they were not eligible for California unemployment insurance benefits, or the woman did not have the authority to file claims on their behalf.”
According to the DOJ, the woman applied for more than $2 million in benefits and received over $1 million.
In addition to serving prison time, the woman was ordered to pay $1,116,683 in restitution.