City News Service, News Partner
SAN DIEGO, CA— A San Diego woman who used her position within the state Employment Development Department to file more than $850,000 in fraudulent unemployment claims in exchange for bribes was sentenced Friday to more than five years in prison.
Regina Brice, 43, worked as an employment program representative and during the pandemic, her job involved processing COVID-related unemployment claims.
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Brice took bribes to help a number of people, including state prison inmates, file the false claims between July of 2020 and May of 2021. She also advised co-conspirators on how to withdraw the ill-gotten funds in a manner that avoided detection by fraud-check systems utilized by banks, prosecutors said.
Brice was sentenced Friday to 66 months in prison following her plea to a mail fraud charge. The U.S. Attorney's Office said in total, $858, 339 in false claims were made.
There are a slew of legal challenges to Trump’s war on immigrants: there are people illegally sent to Nayib Bukele’s concentration camp, most notably Kilmar Abrego Garcia (whom Chris Van Hollen man...