The Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program expanded eligibility to workers who would not normally receive traditional unemployment benefits – workers who wouldn’t have W-2s or an average weekly wage, such as the self-employed workers, gig workers, freelancers, and independent contractors. Without such documentation, it was difficult to not only calculate unemployment benefits but also to confirm eligibility, data that could often be untraceable. A fact that Tabitha Leigh Markle was banking on.
Between April 2020 and January 2021, Markle filed more than 150 claims to the California Employment Development Department using stolen identifies. Many of the identities were incarcerated at the time of the fraud. Among the fake jobs used in the fraudulent applications were manicurists, music mixers, construction painters, barbers, and tree-trimmers – careers that are historically known as independent contractors, therefore no W-2s or pay stubs are needed as proof for benefit eligibility. Just self-certification, which was what Markle did. Markle called California EDD more than 1,000 times regarding her fraudulent claims and called Bank of America to track the debit cards containing the benefits. Markle obtained approximately $2,599,038 from the scheme.
Markle’s scheme came to light after an Oakland man attempted to file a legitimate claim for unemployment in 2020 and was denied. Turns out, Markle had fraudulently filed a claim and obtained thousands of dollars using his name, date of birth and California ID number. On February 14, 2025, Markle pled guilty to unemployment fraud.
Shout out to the Deposit Insurance Corporation Office of Inspector General, and the California EDD – Investigation Division for this case the cases to come. The Government Accountability Office estimates that upwards of $100 billion in unemployment benefits were lost to fraud during the pandemic, only $5 billion have been recovered.
Today’s Fraud of The Day is based on article “Sacramento woman pleads guilty to stealing identities and inventing fake jobs in EDD fraud” published by The Sacramento Bee on February 14, 2025.
Sacramento woman pleaded guilty on Thursday to aggravated identity theft and mail fraud in connection with a scheme prosecutors say stole $2.6 million in COVID-era benefits from the state’s Employment Development Department.
Tabitha Leigh Markle, 53, admitted in an agreement filed in federal court in Sacramento that she and accomplices stole the identities of several people and collected unemployment benefits using their names, social security numbers and other identifying information to collect the benefits.
