A Riverside County lady was sentenced this week to 4½ years in jail for her function in bilking California’s unemployment insurance coverage profit program of greater than $1.1 million, authorities mentioned.
Catrina Gipson, 47, of Moreno Valley, was sentenced Thursday in federal courtroom in Los Angeles, in keeping with the U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace. Gipson was additionally ordered to pay $1,106,282 in restitution.
Gipson pleaded responsible final summer time to 1 rely of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one rely of aggravated identification theft.
Prosecutors mentioned Gipson was the ringleader of a scheme by which she and kinfolk drew bogus unemployment claims from pretend companies they’d registered with the California Employment Growth Division.
Between 2013 and 2016, Gipson recruited family and friends to handle the fictional companies and their phony unemployment claims, authorities mentioned. They routed mail for phony retail outfits by a number of put up workplace packing containers and drew down their unemployment advantages — issued by EDD debit playing cards — utilizing totally different banks.
A number of the claims have been made in Gipson’s title, others within the names of her seven accomplices, authorities mentioned. Not less than 9 claims have been made within the names of jail inmates, who have been serving time once they have been allegedly laid off, courtroom data present. One particular person had been incarcerated since 2000.
Gipson and her accomplices have been arrested in 2020. Vernisha Jolivet, 30, who was named as a co-conspirator, has additionally pleaded responsible to a single rely of wire fraud in reference to the case and was sentenced to 6 months in jail.
The remaining six defendants are anticipated to face trial this spring.
