A college football player was taken into custody Monday on federal charges alleging he orchestrated a scheme that fraudulently sought hundreds of thousands of dollars in COVID-related unemployment benefits.
Abdul-Malik McClain, 22, is a former USC player who left the school amid a federal probe into his brother and currently attends Jackson State in Mississippi, according to the Los Angeles Times.
McClain surrendered to federal law enforcement in Los Angeles Monday morning before being arraigned in the afternoon, according to the United States District Attorney for the Central District of California.
A federal grand jury indictment returned on Dec. 16 and unsealed Monday charges McClain with 10 counts of mail fraud and two counts of aggravated identity theft, the D.A.’s office said.
McClain, who was residing in L.A. in 2020 during the alleged scheme, pleaded not guilty to the charges against him and was ordered released on a $20,000 bond.
While a member of his university’s football team, McClain organized and assisted a group of other football players in filing fraudulent claims for unemployment benefits, including under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program established by Congress in response to the pandemic’s economic fallout, according to the indictment obtained by the D.A.’s office.
The indictment alleges that the claims, which were filed with the California Employment Development Department (EDD), contained false information about the football players’...
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