LOS ANGELES
A former employee of the California Employment Development Department (EDD), which administers the state’s unemployment insurance (UI) program, pleaded guilty Wednesday to fraudulently stealing more than $750,000 in COVID jobless relief.
Phyllis Hope Stitt, 61, of Carson, pleaded guilty today to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and bank fraud for filing at least 29 fraudulent UI claims that caused the EDD to suffer approximately $768,958 in losses.
Also pleading guilty today to the same charge was Kenneth Earl Riley, 64, of South Los Angeles, Stitt’s former boyfriend.
Both are facing up to 30 years in prison, according to prosecutors.
According to their plea agreements, Stitt and Riley had been in a relationship as domestic partners with each other for over a decade at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic when Stitt was employed by the EDD as an employment program representative.
Her job duties included determining claimant eligibility for unemployment insurance (UI) benefits and performing claim processing activities.
From March 2020 to September 2021, Stitt used her position at EDD to access personal information, including names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, and other identifying details, which she used to file fraudulent unemployment claims.
She submitted these claims without the victims’ knowledge or consent and inflated the benefits by backdating the requests.
Stitt certified that the victims had provided their employment history and driver’s license details, and that they were unemployed due to the pandemic and actively seeking work.
Many of the victims were ineligible, either because they were employed, not affected by the pandemic, or deceased.
In filing the fraudulent applications, Stitt used mailing addresses that Riley had access to Debit cards and accounts created as a result of these fraudulent applications were then accessed by Riley and others, who made cash withdrawals at ATMs, bank transfers and retail purchases.
U.S. District Judge André Birotte Jr. scheduled sentencing hearings for May 9. Each defendant faces up to 30 years in federal prison.
Anyone with information about allegations of attempted fraud involving COVID-19 can report it by calling the Department of Justice’s National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) Hotline at (866) 720-5721 or via the NCDF Web Complaint Form at https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form.