RIVERSIDE, California
On Monday, the last two defendants in a massive Inland Empire-based scheme to fraudulently obtain $2.1 million in pandemic-related unemployment insurance (UI) benefits pleaded guilty to conspiracy and mail fraud charges.
The eight defendants falsely claimed to be salon and barbershop workers who had lost their jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
They used stolen identities to obtain the benefits and then laundered the proceeds through various bank accounts and prepaid cards.
Keith Burns, 39, of Houston, Texas, and Regjinay Tate, 29, of Corona, each pleaded guilty Monday to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud about benefits connected to a presidentially declared emergency and one count of mail fraud about benefits connected to a presidentially declared emergency.
The other six defendants, in this case, pleaded guilty over the past several weeks to the same conspiracy count and the same or similar mail fraud charges.
Court documents allege that from March 2020 through July 2021, Robert Campbell Jr. of Corona led a scheme to obtain unemployment insurance (UI) fraudulently benefits from the California Employment Development Department (EDD) using stolen personally identifiable information (PII) of others.
Campbell and his accomplices utilized names, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers to file false UI applications and unlawfully obtain funds from the state.
The fraudulent UI claims were federally funded through programs authorized by Congress in response to the pandemic, including the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance and Lost Wage Assistance programs.
Many of the fraudulent claims were made on behalf of ineligible out-of-state claimants and on behalf of people ineligible for benefits because they were imprisoned, including one claimant in Texas.
The fraudulent applications falsely stated the claimants had prior annual incomes of $42,000 and that they were self-employed individuals whose jobs were adversely impacted when salons and barbershops closed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The fraudulent applications listed mailing addresses with locations chosen and controlled by Campbell and his accomplices.
Once the fraudulent applications were approved, debit cards were mailed to those addresses.
One defendant – Dillon Roberts, 31, of Eagle Point, Oregon – recruited Texas residents ineligible for California EDD benefits, including co-defendant Burns, to provide their PII to generate fraudulent EDD claims and payments in their names.
In total, Campbell and others caused 174 fraudulent applications to be filed with EDD, resulting in 125 fraudulent claims to be paid and resulting in total losses of approximately $2.1 million.
Campbell, who pleaded guilty on March 6, is scheduled to be sentenced on June 5 by U.S. District Judge Jesus G. Bernal.
The other seven defendants will be sentenced in the coming months, including sentencing hearings scheduled for June 26 for Burns and Tate.
As a result of their guilty pleas, each of the eight defendants face up to 30 years in federal prison for the conspiracy count and 30 years for the mail fraud charges.
Assistant United States Attorney Adam P. Schleifer of the Major Frauds Section is prosecuting this case.
Anyone with information about allegations of fraud involving COVID-19 can report it by calling the Department of Justice’s National Center for Disaster Fraud Hotline at (866) 720-5721 or via the NCDF Web Complaint Form at: https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form.