Two women have been charged by federal authorities in Minnesota with stealing millions of dollars in COVID-19 relief money from government agencies.
Takara Hughes, 35, of Maplewood, and Tequisha Solomon, 39, of Las Vegas, were each charged last week with numerous counts of wire fraud in connection with defrauding Minnesota's Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED), California's Employment Development Department (EDD) and other state agencies, by submitting fraudulent claims and applications for unemployment benefits.
The defendants are scheduled to make their initial appearances in U.S. District Court in St. Paul on July 15. Messages were left with their attorneys Tuesday seeking responses to the allegations.
According to prosecutors:
For example, while Solomon and Hughes lived in Nevada or Minnesota, they falsely claimed they resided in southern California and worked as hairstylists. This prompted California's EDD to pay Solomon at least $37,000 and Hughes at least $46,000 in unemployment benefits.
Solomon, who also has lived in South St. Paul and Woodbury, and Hughes also fraudulently applied for economic injury disaster and Paycheck Protection Program small business loans, falsely claiming that they owned cleaning service businesses.
They also submitted fraudulent claims on behalf of other people and charged them a fee to do so. In total, as a direct result of the material falsehoods and omissions, Solomon caused the United States and multiple state...
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