LOS ANGELES
An Antelope Valley woman plead guilty in federal court this morning in a mail fraud scheme that used personal data stolen from elderly victims in an effort to defraud California’s unemployment insurance program out of nearly $300,000, officials announced today.
Dena Peterman, who also uses the name Dena Buttram, 32, of Littlerock, plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud.
She is facing up to five years in prison when she is sentenced in January, officials said.
According to court documents, over the course of two years, Peterman and her co-conspirators stole social security numbers and other personal identifying information. It was used to defraud the California Employment Development Department.
It administers the state unemployment insurance program.
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.
They told victims that they had an opportunity to be cast in remakes of popular movies.
Peterman and her co-conspirators created bogus companies supposedly related to the movie industry with names such as Nine Maids Movie Production, Western Film Animation and High Desert Productions.
Using the stolen personal information, a co-conspirator filed fictitious wage reports with the Employment Development.
Then, officials said they fraudulently sought unemployment insurance benefits for the people who supposedly worked for the movie companies.
Employment Development subsequently provided unemployment insurance benefits in the names of these individuals through debit cards that were mailed to addresses that Peterman or her co-conspirators controlled.
As a result of this scheme, Peterman and her co-conspirators sought more than $290,000 in unemployment insurance benefits, and Employment Development suffered losses of approximately $221,612.