LOS ANGELES, CALIF.
A federal grand jury indicted a woman who stole identities of elderly victims to defraud California’s unemployment insurance program out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, officials said today.
Dena Peterman, 32, of Littlerock, was named in an eight-count indictment that charges her with conspiracy, aggravated identity theft and six counts of mail fraud.
The scheme stole $500,000 from the state’s unemployment insurance program, officials said.
During a two year period, Peterman and her co-conspirators allegedly stole social security numbers and other personal identifying information that was used to commit unemployment insurance fraud.
According to court documents, Peterman and her co-conspirators targeted senior citizens as part of the scam, obtaining social security numbers and other personal data from the elderly victims in Oregon and California by telling them that they had an opportunity to be cast in remakes of the 1985 movie “Cocoon” and the 1981 film “On Golden Pond.”
Once they had obtained the personal information, Peterman and her co-conspirators allegedly created bogus companies supposedly related to the movie industry, submitted false wage information for the elderly victims and other individuals whom they falsely claimed worked for these companies, and submitted bogus unemployment insurance claims in the names of these individuals.
The California Employment Development Department subsequently provided unemployment insurance benefits through debit cards. This resulted in the Employment Development Department suffering losses of $500,000 in unemployment claims benefits.
Peterman was arrested this month and will be arraigned on June 5.
If convicted of the charges, Peterman is facing up to five years in federal prison on the conspiracy, up to 20 years for each mail fraud count, and consecutive two-year sentence for the identity theft count.
Peterman is presumed innocent until proven guilty.