Minnesota Man Gets 28 Years for $48 Million COVID-Era Food Fraud Scandal; Sacramento Woman Sentenced to Over 4 Years for $2.5 Million COVID-19 Unemployment Fraud , and other C-Virus related stories

AP

Minnesota man gets 28 years for $48 million COVID-era food fraud scandal:

A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced a leader of a sprawling, pandemic-era food fraud plot in Minnesota to 28 years in prison.

Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, 36, must also pay nearly $48 million in restitution. He faces potentially more years in prison at a later sentencing hearing after previously pleading guilty in a juror bribery case involving a bag of $120,000 in cash.

Farah is one of dozens of people charged in the Feeding Our Future case in which prosecutors alleged a scheme to steal $300 million from a federally funded program meant to feed children during the coronavirus pandemic.

Farah and several co-defendants went to trial last year where he was convicted of 23 of 24 counts against him. Those offenses include multiple counts of federal programs bribery, wire fraud and money laundering.

Prosecutors said Farah exploited the program by opening fraudulent sites where he claimed to be serving meals to thousands of children a day. --->READ MORE HERE

Sacramento woman sentenced to over 4 years for $2.5 million COVID-19 unemployment fraud:

A Sacramento woman has been sentenced for organizing a fraud scheme during the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Thursday, Tabitha Leigh Markle, 53, appeared in court and received a sentence of four years and two months in prison. This case stems from multiple incidents between April 2020 and January 2021 when Markle allegedly engaged in mail fraud and aggravated identity theft in a scheme to defraud the unemployment insurance benefit program.

“Tabitha Markle unlawfully obtained over $2.5 million in COVID-19 pandemic-related unemployment insurance benefits by using the personal identifying information of other people, including several inmates in California state prisons, to file fraudulent claims. She falsified employment records to make it appear that the claimants were eligible for benefits when, in fact, they were not. Many of these individuals were unwitting participants in her scheme. The illegally obtained unemployment insurance funds, which Markle used for personal gain, were intended to support American workers facing economic hardship during an unprecedented public health crisis,” said Quentin Heiden, Special Agent-in-Charge, Western Region, U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Inspector General.

According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of California, Markle defrauded the California Employment Development Department (EDD) out of unemployment insurance benefits. She submitted multiple fraudulent applications for unemployment insurance benefits to EDD. Together with her associates, she caused the unemployment insurance debit cards to be mailed to addressed she listed in the applications and then used the cards to withdraw cash from ATMs across California. There are ATM surveillance photos that show Markle and her associates taking out large amounts of cash from the cards. --->READ MORE HERE

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