EDD Scam: Serial killers, rapists, murderers claim COVID-related unemployment, district attorneys say

KCRA ^ | Nov 24, 2020 | KCRA Staff

[artichokegrower]

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Tens of thousands of California jail and prison inmates, including serial killers, rapists, child molesters and murderers on death row, are accused of scamming California's Employment Development Department out of COVID-19-related unemployment assistance, district attorneys announced at a news conference Tuesday. Estimates of the fraud could near $1 billion.

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Schubert said claims were also filed in the names of multiple notorious convicted murderers, including Cary Stayner, convicted of killing four people in Yosemite National Park in 1999; and Susan Eubanks, a San Diego woman convicted of killing her four sons in 1997.

Reactive the death penalty in California and this won’t be a problem

[Pontiac]

This wouldn’t be happening if the bureu of prisons was doing its job.

Inmate mail is monitored.

How did these convicts manage to apply for benefits?

I would be checking up on the guards. One or more of them is getting a cut of these benefits.

[oldenuff35]

I have some personal knowledge of this.

The fraud happened because the EDD personnel allowed it to happen. They failed in their responsibility to properly screen the applications. That is all on them.

One of the key indicators they found after the fact was that many of those committing this fraud changed their addresses to another state soon after the payments started.

EDD in an effort to stop the fraud stopped payment to the debit cards of all, or almost all, of the people who had changed to an out of state address and contacted them to re-identify themselves.

In this move we have one huge problem. Edd is months behind in processing incoming mail. EDD disqualified many people who were, and still are, entitled to these benefits because they lost or still have not processed their re-identification, and suspended all payments from many of those people from mid summer to date.

Many of these cases had to go before an administrative law judge and were decided in favor of the applicants but many weeks after those judgments, they have still not been paid for any current of back benefits that they are due.

There is no recourse against Ca EDD for their failure to pay earned state benefits, but that is not all that is in question here.

Federal moneys/funds were also withheld and in those refused payments and because of those federal funds there is a course of action to hold CA EDD accountable for their failure to pay entitled out of work Ca Citizens.

If you are one of these people call one of the two US Senators from the state of Ca and formally request, insist, that they officially involve their offices because federal funds have been wrongly withheld from thousands qualified and entitled CA Workers.

This whole mess happened because Ca EDD did not do their jobs correctly, and it continues to happen because many months later Ca EDD has not adjusted, hired and trained, enough people to process and straighten out the mess they themselves created and are responsible for.

Kids have gone hungry because those who run Ca EDD have totally failed to to do their damn jobs.

I have family who have been fighting this battle and when calling EDD they get endless information about when payments will arrive that have, in each and every instance, failed to come true.

The COVID excuse does not work anymore.

Doctors, nurses, teachers, law enforcement officers and many others have all had to figure out how to do their jobs in the new reality of COVID-19. It is way past time for the leadership at the CA EDD to figure out how to do their damn job within this new reality just like the rest of us have had to do.

Yes there was fraud because EDD did not do their jobs correctly. But not all they have swept up in their net are guilty of fraud. Many are fully entitled to their unemployment benefits from the state of Ca as well as the federal COVID relief funds.

If you are in this situation or know someone who is, instigate calls Senator Feinstein’s or/or Senator Harria’s office and demand that they officially involve themselves to find out why fully authorized federal funds have been refused to citizens of Ca who are fully entitled to them.