California EDD – Investigation Division assisted with investigation

“There was an urgency to get pandemic relief assistance to those who suddenly became unemployed during COVID-19.  Now that the urgency has passed, investigators are able to review applications and investigate fraud.  These investigations are leading to successful prosecutions and prison sentences.”

– CSLEA President Alan Barcelona

SACRAMENTO— On February 13, 2024, Kaymeisha Keyes, 32, most recently of Tracy, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft.

According to court documents, between April 2020 and August 2021, Keyes executed a scheme to defraud the California Employment Development Department (EDD) by filing more than 70 fraudulent unemployment insurance claims with EDD, seeking Pandemic Unemployment Assistance and other benefits under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

During the scheme, Keyes collected personally identifiable information of numerous individuals — including names, birth dates, and Social Security numbers — and used their identities to file fraudulent unemployment insurance claims. The filings represented, among other things, that the claimants had recently lost employment or were unable to find employment due to the COVID-19 pandemic. These unemployment insurance claims were fraudulent because, for example, the claimants were not unemployed, they were not eligible for California unemployment insurance benefits, or Keyes did not have authority to file claims on their behalf.

Since at least October 2021, EDD partnered with ID.me — a private company used by the EDD for ID verification of claimants — to implement a system for verifying claimant identities before EDD can process unemployment insurance claims.

In executing this fraudulent scheme, Keyes submitted false information to ID.me that allowed fake and stolen identities to be verified. This false information included images of fake driver’s licenses that contained photos of Keyes and co-schemers and the names of the purported claimants. She also submitted photos of herself and co-schemers that were used to verify the photos on the fake driver’s licenses. Once these false identities were verified, Keyes filed the fraudulent unemployment insurance claims with EDD under the same identities.

In the fraudulent unemployment insurance applications, Keyes requested that the unemployment insurance benefits be mailed to various addresses under her control, including her residence in Tracy. EDD approved dozens of the fraudulent claims and authorized Bank of America to mail out EDD debit cards containing unemployment insurance benefits. Keyes then activated the EDD debit cards and spent the benefits on herself. The scheme sought more than $2 million in unemployment insurance benefits and caused EDD and the United States to incur actual losses exceeding $1.1 million.

This case is the product of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Office of Correctional Safety, and the California EDD – Investigation Division with assistance from the U.S. Department of Labor Office of Inspector General.

Keyes is scheduled to be sentenced on May 11, 2024. Keyes faces a maximum statutory penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the wire fraud count. She faces a two-year mandatory prison sentence on the aggravated identity theft count, which must run consecutive to any sentence received on the wire fraud count. The actual sentence, however, will be determined at the discretion of the court after consideration of any applicable statutory factors and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take into account a number of variables.