Santa Clara County prosecutors are cracking down on people—and particularly inmates—who’ve scammed taxpayers out of a fortune in ill-gotten unemployment benefits.
Over the past two months, officials have identified tens of thousands of incarcerates throughout the state—including serial killer Cary Stayner—who managed to bilk hundreds of millions of dollars in payments from the California Employment Development Department (EDD).
In the South Bay, authorities say, it’s being perpetrated by organized rings involving people locked up in local jails.
The DA’s office cites a case in which just one inmate stole $12 million from the EDD.
Though no charges have been filed against the suspect, Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen—like his peers throughout the state—said he’s assembled a team to tackle the problem and expects charges to be filed soon.
Benefits fraud is punishable by up to three years in state prison and fines of $20,000.
Inmates are legally barred from receiving EDD benefits. But authorities say they’re getting around that by working with co-conspirators who use the inmate’s identifying information to submit EDD applications.
To prevent the EDD from finding out that the applicant is incarcerated, the DA says the accomplices receive the payments and then transfer them back to inmates.
“To those who have abused the system during this pandemic: you will be caught and pay the price from stealing from the pockets of the needy,” Rosen said in an announcement about the enforcement effort. “Fraudulent unemployment claims deny benefits to those who are legally entitled to receive them and who truly are in need.”
> Santa Clara Co. DA Jeff Rosen Cracks Down on EDD Fraud
Jeff Rosen doing something useful?
What’s gotten in to him?
Bubble, DA wants to be the next CA Attorney General! Never #Rosen
Incarcerated persons are entitled to the 1200 stimulus although it is apparent fraud was committed??♀️
California Employment Development Department
https://www.edd.ca.gov/
CA
dot
gov
In three years, the guy will have scammed another $36 million and it’ll be the second term of the Newsom administration. Why not let him out with $2000 and maybe he’ll die of covid after a restaurant meal?
OMG!
Is Rosen serious?
You have a lazy, greedy, incompetent government bureaucracy that has no incentive to responsibly do it’s job and no accountability when it doesn’t, and he considers the opportunists who always have been and always will be there to capitalize on the careless handling of the peoples’ money to be the problem? Get real.
The real fraud here is the EDD itself.
Government “service”. What a colossal racket.
> But to attack the EDD in this situation which is so extreme that it is no in fact keeping our economy from total collapse is VERY dangerous. Imagine when say 3-4 million people wind up homeless, cannot get food or are in even more serious health danger, and in the end are unemployable because they don’t even have an address?
I think the solution is to lock down businesses, prohibit outdoor dining, and arrest and fine people for not wearing masks.
It’s worked every time it’s been tried.
> “The opinions that have been expressed by Knut Wittkowski, . . . , do not represent the views of The Rockefeller University, its leadership, or its faculty.
Have you noticed what postmodernists have done to universities lately? Critical Race Theory? Oppression studies? Social Justice Activism?
Having views that differ from the “leadership” or “faculty” of many universities is a sign of character, intelligence, common sense, and intellectual gravitas.
If the Rockefeller University leadership disagrees with you, it’s probably a GOOD thing and not a BAD thing.
Are the prisoners victims? It would be interesting to see whether jail and prison employees are involved. They have access to the inmates’ information.
It is my understanding that all jail mail is read by jailers before being given to the prisoners.
Why can’t EDD be provided with inmate rosters for state prisons and county and city jails and the list simply be cross checked against unlawful benefit requests? This is not rocket science.
> You still haven’t provided any SAFE alternative to move forward, right? Please provide one?
Gavin Newson hasn’t provided a SAFE alternative.
Sara Cody hasn’t provided a SAFE alternative.
Andrew Cuomo hasn’t provided a SAFE alternative.
The belief that there is a SAFE alternative is a politician’s belief, not a scientific belief. Politicians believe their job is to “do something” so they will “have something to run on” for the next election.
The scientific reality may very well be that there is no “SAFE” alternative. We live in a world that is full of risks, and politicians who promise mythical SAFE alternatives are , to put it kindly, OVERPROMISING.
Coronavirus is a VIRUS. Viruses spread. It’s what viruses do.
A virus is an evolved complex molecule that is optimized for using the cellular processes of a host organism to achieve it’s own replication. That’s its job: to replicate for the purpose of SPREADING.
Coronavirus will spread UNTIL the population or host organisms has enough potential hosts with immunity that it can no longer spread: herd immunity.
Public health measures like masks and social distancing, at best, slow down the rate of spread modesty. But at the end of the day, the same number of people will become infected (and then immune) whether the spread is fast or slow.
The “safest” thing to do is to quarantine the most vulnerable (old people, compromised immune systems) and let nature take it’s course. The survival rate is 99.X percent.
Slowing down the rate of spread just gives the virus more time to mutate into a different virus, and cause many, many undesirable health and social consequences.
Some dangerous unintended consequences: suicide, despair, mental illness, missed medical diagnoses and treatments, educational deprivation, etc. etc. etc.
Very smart people know this and have been saying this, but the political class has got the country on information lockdown to help Democrats get elected and defeat Trump.
The fact that you don’t know this just shows how effective the information lockdown has been ON YOU!
> In any case, obviously you know you are guilty of something,
How do you know that I know this?
Does your assessment of my state of mind come with a warranty?
If your assessment is defective, are you liable? How do I collect? And, how much?
So, Steven, how long have you been on Rosan’s payroll. Your passive aggressive threats have become tedious.
If DA Rosen is going medieval on EDD crime, can one assume that Rosen believes that most of the perpetrators are white?
> Santa Clara Co. DA Jeff Rosen Cracks Down on EDD Fraud
https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/california/california-covid-19-benefits-fraud-could-reach-9-8-billion/2446582/?_osource=SocialFlowTwt_BAYBrand
California COVID-19 Benefits Fraud Could Reach $9.8 Billion
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Don’t worry, California. Gavin Newsom and Jeff Rosen are on the case.
Those crooks aren’t going to get away with this and Democrat public officials up and down the state are going to make sure that every last nickel of fraud is identified and returned to tax payers.
Why are you looking at me like that?