EDD employee carried out unemployment fraud with California prison inmates, swindled $93K

A woman who was hired to process California unemployment insurance claims has been sentenced to 25 months in prison for filing more than $200,000 worth of fraudulent claims on behalf of prisoners and others, the Department of Justice announced Monday.

Nyika Gomez, 31, of San Diego, coordinated with a California State Prison, Sacramento inmate to file backdated claims of up to $19,560 per claimant — the maximum that could be paid out per claim — starting around July 2020, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.

Gomez was working as a contract employee at an Employment Development Department call center. The department, overwhelmed with a surge of unemployment insurance claims during the COVID-19 pandemic, hired hundreds of temporary employees.

The department has paid out an estimated $20 billion in fraudulent claims to recipients around the world and expects to recover little of the money, McGregor Scott, a former U.S. attorney who has been investigating the fraud for the unemployment agency, has said.

Gomez submitted about $214,000 worth of claims, and the California Employment Development Department paid out about $93,000 in fraudulent claims, according to a Dec. 15 plea agreement.

She was ordered to pay that amount back as part of the plea deal, in which she pleaded guilty to felony wire fraud and to aggravated identity theft, which carries a minimum sentence of two years, according to a plea agreement.

Gomez filed false claims on behalf of prisoners and purchased identifying information of other people — paying $700 to $1,000 per person — and arranged for debit cards to be sent to her address and addresses of her associates, according to court documents.

Andrew Flores, a San Diego-based attorney listed in court documents as representing Gomez, did not immediately respond to a voicemail Tuesday.

Gomez also defrauded the Arizona Department for Economic Security, according to Monday’s news release.

“This defendant was supposed to help unemployed workers,” acting U.S. attorney Randy Grossman said in the release. Instead, she cut a hole in their safety net, and she has been held to account for her greedy actions.”

This story was originally published December 21, 2021 at 1:52 PM.