EDD Scam: Serial killers, rapists, murderers claim COVID-related unemployment, district attorneys say

Tens of thousands of California jail and prison inmates, including serial killers, rapists, child molesters and murderers on death row, are accused of scamming California's Employment Development Department out of COVID-19-related unemployment assistance, district attorneys announced at a news conference Tuesday. Estimates of the fraud could near $1 billion and the vast majority of money taken so far will not be recouped.

El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pierson said he believes the largest taxpayer fraud in California history is due to “dysfunctionality” within the EDD, including a series of resignations, retirements and “lack of responsibility."

The district attorneys who spoke at the briefing said that EDD fraud exists in every California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation institution and every type of inmate, including at least 133 death row inmates amounting to more than $421,000 in losses just through August. Fifty-eight county jails account for an additional hundreds of millions in EDD losses.

“It has been said that there is no honor among thieves, and there is no better example of this then the massive EDD fraud that is occurring within our jails, in our prisons here in California,” Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert said.

Schubert confirmed at the briefing Tuesday that an EDD fraud claim was made in the name of inmate Scott Peterson.

Peterson was convicted of first-degree murder in 2004 in the killing of his wife, Laci Peterson, 27, who was eight months pregnant at the time of her death. He also was convicted of second-degree murder of their unborn son, Conner. In 2005, he was sentenced to death.

Investigators say Peterson took his wife's body from their Modesto home and dumped it from his fishing boat into San Francisco Bay, where it surfaced months later. Peterson has maintained his innocence.

Schubert said claims were also filed in the names of multiple notorious convicted murderers, including Cary Stayner, convicted of killing four people in Yosemite National Park in 1999; and Susan Eubanks, a San Diego woman convicted of killing her four sons in 1997.

In some cases, prosecutors were tipped off by listening in o... (Read more)

Latest News