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...
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