LOS ANGELES
A federal grand jury indicted four men on mail fraud and other federal charges for their involvement in a scheme that allegedly used dozens of bogus companies to collect more than $4 million in unemployment benefits for “employees” who never did any work at the sham entities, authorities allege.
The two defendants taken into custody today are Jack Benjamin Hessiani, also known as “Jack Herrera,” 37, of Camarillo, and Hessiani’s cousin, Eduardo Josue Garcia, 24, also of Camarillo.
The other two defendants in the case – Hessiani’s brother, James Manuel Herrera, 27, also of Camarillo; and Daniel Ayala-Mora, another cousin of Hessiani and Herrera, 25, who recently moved from Camarillo to Las Vegas – are currently being sought be authorities.
A 22-count indictment that was returned yesterday afternoon by a federal grand jury. The indictment alleges an overarching conspiracy to create fictitious companies that supposedly employed scores of workers who then sought unemployment insurance benefits by claiming to have been laid off.
The indictment also alleges substantive counts of mail fraud, use of unauthorized access devices (debit cards) and aggravated identity theft.
According to the indictment, these are the allegations:
- Hessiani and Herrera created numerous fictitious companies for the sole purpose of defrauding the state Employment Development Department, the agency that administers the federal unemployment insurance program in California.
- After filing documents with Employment Development that showed fictitious earnings for “workers,” Hessiani and Herrera allegedly filed and caused to be filed unemployment claims for purported laid-off “employees,” who were actually people who had agreed to provide their personal identifying information in exchange for a portion of the unemployment benefits.
- The unemployment benefits, in the form of checks and debit cards, were sent to “mail drops” that Hessiani and Herrera had established in the names of others.
- Once Employment Development began issuing unemployment benefits, Hessiani and Herrera saw that documents were filed that claimed the laid-off “workers” were still unemployed, and later they sought “extended benefits” to obtain unemployment insurance beyond the normal six-months, according to the indictment.
- All four defendants allegedly sought unemployment insurance benefits for themselves based on their own “work” at the fictitious companies.
- Investigators believe that the scheme involved more than 40 fictitious businesses in Ventura County. Most of the fake companies had names that made them appear to be involved in marketing and networking services.
- Hessiani and Herrara allegedly kept enlarging their scheme by inducing “workers” to act as recruiters of other “workers” and would pay referral fees for each new “worker” brought into the scheme
- As a result of this scheme, investigators believe that members of the conspiracy sought approximately $6.7 million in fraudulent unemployment insurance benefits, and that Employment Development and the U.S. Treasury suffered combined actual losses of approximately $4.8 million.
The defendants are facing lengthy prison sentences if convicted of the charges.
The defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty.