Woman indicted for fraud, theft, bribery after releasing $800K in unemployment funds
A former employee of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services has been indicted for fraud, theft, and bribery due to their illicit handling of the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance funds.
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In 2020, Congress passed various programs to address the economic crisis that stemmed from COVID-19 shut downs, including the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program.
The PUA program expanded and loosened eligibility requirements for unemployment benefits to financially help more Americans during the pandemic. However, as a consequence, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS), the agency responsible for distributing PUA benefits in Ohio, received an “unprecedented” number of unemployment compensation claims, a spokesperson for the Office of the Ohio Inspector General stated.
“This increase in claims necessitated ODJFS to hire intermittent and temporary contracted workers to process the claims,” the spokesperson informed.
ODJFS later discovered millions of dollars of disbursals as fraudulent out of the $7.6 billion given out, the spokesperson claimed. To address the issue, an investigative group was established that consisted of the Office of the Ohio Inspector General, Ohio State Highway Patrol, United States Department of Labor-Office of Inspector General, and ODJFS.
During the investigation, the Office of the Ohio Inspector General found that Donesha Shepard, who was hired by ODJFS to serve as an intermittent customer service representative, improperly accessed and removed the “fraud-knowing failure” designation.
Her actions allowed ineligible claimants to receive a total of $799,986.
“Investigators analyzed telephone and social media records, and discovered Shepard advertised, both by word of mouth and by her Facebook postings, that she could remove, for a fee, the fraud holds or denial-of-benefit designations on PUA claims for ineligible claimants,” the spokesperson said.
“From a review of Shepard’s Facebook messages, investigators learned that after a payment fee was agreed upon between Shepard and a claimant, Shepard would submit a note in the ODJFS PUA claims system to remove the fraud hold designation on the claim in order for the money to be disbursed,” the spokesperson continued.
The investigation showed that the recipients lived near Shepard’s residence, had familial connections, involved inmates who made digital payments to Shepard, or were connected to Shepard by telephone calls and text messages.
The Hamilton County Grand Jury indicted Donesha Shepard and three others on counts of theft, tampering with records, telecommunication fraud, and bribery.
