State worker and her boyfriend stole $750,000 in jobless benefits in California, feds say
A former state employee in California admitted to getting more than $750,000 in pandemic jobless benefits by filing fraudulent claims, using names, Social Security numbers and other information she had access to through her work, prosecutors said.
The victims weren’t aware that Phyllis Hope Stitt, 61, of Carson, filed applications using their personal information, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California said in a Jan. 8 news release. Many were ineligible for COVID-19 benefits because they had jobs, weren’t out of work because of the pandemic, or were dead, prosecutors said.
Stitt backdated the requests “to maximize the claims,” and then her now-former boyfriend and others used “debit cards and accounts created as a result of these fraudulent applications” to make withdrawals, transfers and purchases, according to prosecutors.
Stitt pleaded guilty Jan. 8 to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and bank fraud, along with her former boyfriend, Kenneth Earl Riley, 64, of South Los Angeles, prosecutors said. They each face up to 30 years behind bars.
McClatchy News reached out to their attorneys Jan. 10 and was awaiting responses.
Stitt worked for the California Employment Development Department, where her jobs involved determining whether people were eligible for unemployment insurance benefits and processing claims, according to prosecutors.
Between March 2020 and September 2021, she used “access and information available to her in her position” to get a hold of names, birth dates, Social Security numbers and other information, prosecutors said.
She filed at least 29 fraudulent claims, according to prosecutors.
She included mailing addresses that were accessible by Riley and/or his associates, and “Riley and his associates would fraudulently assume the identities” of the supposed applicants and make withdrawals and purchases using debit accounts set up for them by the state after the benefits were approved, according to prosecutors.
Stitt and Riley, who were together from at least March 2009 to March 2021, are scheduled to be sentenced in May, prosecutors said.
Carson is about an 18-mile drive south from downtown Los Angeles.
This story was originally published January 10, 2025 at 5:35 PM with the headline "State worker and her boyfriend stole $750,000 in jobless benefits in California, feds say."
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