According to the Los Angeles Times, nine district attorneys and one federal prosecutor in California held a joint press conference on November 24 local time to announce the cracking of a large number of cases of fraud of unemployment benefits by prisoners within California.
It is reported that from March to August this year, law enforcement found a large number of unemployment benefit frauds related to prisoners in California, including those sentenced to life imprisonment and death sentences, as well as serial killers, who received unemployment benefits from California, with a total amount of $140 million.
The survey found that more than 35,000 people who served their sentences had applied for unemployment benefits, while about 20,000 people who served their sentences passed the application, and one of them even received $48,000 in relief.
At least 133 other death rowers also received about 158 unemployment benefits, including the most notorious murderer in California history. These prisoners receive unemployment benefits with the help of external partners using forged names and social security numbers.
The district attorney in charge of the case said that the actions of these prisoners were the worst fraud against taxpayers in California history, and said that they had never seen such a large-scale fraud in his 40-year career as a prosecutor.
The prosecutor also stressed that the crime occurred in California because the California Employment Development Department received more than 16.4 million unemployment claims in the face of the coronavirus epidemic, and did not carefully approve the application. Check the information of prison prisoners and the unemployed.
At present, these district attorneys have written to California Governor Newsom and asked him to intervene. In response to the situation, Governor Newsom said that he would order the Office of Emergency Affairs to set up a working group to assist the prosecutor’s office in the investigation and state that fraud in local and state and federal prisons was absolutely unacceptable and would work closely with departments to resolutely combat such fraud.
