SANTA ANA, California
A federal grand jury Wednesday returned an eight-count indictment charging an Orange County man with defrauding California’s unemployment insurance program
Nhan Hoang Pham used personal information stolen from people with similar names to apply for $1.25 million in COVID-19 unemployment benefits.
Pham, 36, of Santa Ana, was charged with three counts of mail fraud concerning benefits connected to a presidentially declared emergency, one count of wire fraud concerning benefits connected to a presidentially declared emergency, and four counts of aggravated identity theft.
Pham is currently in state custody on unrelated charges and is expected to be arraigned on the federal indictment following his release later this month.
The indictment alleges that Pham submitted fraudulent applications for unemployment insurance from approximately July 2020 through April 2021 after acquiring personal identifying information – such as dates of birth and Social Security numbers – from individuals with identical or similar names who lived in California, Texas and Michigan.
Pham allegedly submitted 24 fraudulent applications to the California Employment Development Department (EDD), which administers unemployment insurance benefits for residents of California, including Pandemic Unemployment Assistance benefits to unemployed individuals because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Pham directed that unemployment benefit cards issued by Bank of America on behalf of the EDD be sent to mail drops he controlled in Anaheim, which alleges that Pham and co-schemers used the benefit cards to withdraw cash from ATMs across Orange County.
Pham allegedly filed applications that fraudulently sought $1.2 million in unemployment benefits, and the total loss, in this case, is approximately $408,496.
Pham is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
If convicted of the charges, Pham faces up to 30 years in federal prison for each of the four fraud counts. Additionally, the aggravated identity theft charges carry a mandatory two-year consecutive sentence.
The United States Secret Service; the United States Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General; the California Employment Development Department, Investigation Division; the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, Bureau of Investigation; and the Santa Ana Police Department investigated Pham
Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel S. Lim of the Santa Ana Branch Office prosecutes this case.