Santa Maria woman pleads guilty to COVID-19 insurance fraud
January 16, 2024
By KAREN VELIE
A 51-year-old Santa Maria woman and her 30-year-old daughter pleaded guilty today to conspiring to commit mail fraud for submitting fraudulent unemployment insurance claims to the California Employment Development Department (EDD) in the names of inmates, U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced.
While Apryl Weston lived in Santa Maria, her daughter Makiah Miles was incarcerated at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla. From June 2020 through Dec. 2020, Miles gathered other inmates’ names, dates of birth, and social security numbers which she sent to Weston.
Weston then submitted false unemployment claims worth nearly $250,000. Weston claimed the inmates had recently worked as childcare providers, cosmetologists, hairdressers and other occupations, but were unemployed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The FBI, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s Investigative Services Unit and the EDD investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Barton is prosecuting the case.
Miles and Weston are scheduled to be sentenced on April 22. They face a maximum statutory penalty of 20 years in prison and $250,000 fines.
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