LAS VEGAS, Nev. – A Las Vegas man today pleaded guilty to filing two dozen fraudulent unemployment insurance claims, which were approved for more than $ 250,000 in unemployment benefits from the Nevada Department of Employment, Training, and Rehabilitation (DETR) and California Employment Development Department (EDD).

According to court documents and confessions made in court, from June 1, 2020 to September 28, 2020, 24-year-old Antwine Demon Hunter and co-conspirators used personally identifiable information belonging to victims to submit 24 bogus unemployment claims to the DETR and EDD. As part of the program, Hunter had DETR and EDD postal debit cards containing unemployment benefits at addresses to which he had access. In total, over $ 250,000 in unemployment benefits have been approved and at least $ 189,118 has been withdrawn by Hunter.

Hunter pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud. US District Judge Andrew P. Gordon has sentenced October 27, 2021. Hunter faces a legal maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a fine of $ 250,000.

Acting United States Attorney Christopher Chiou for the District of Nevada and Special Agent in Charge Quentin Heiden of the Office of the Inspector General of the United States Department of Labor (DOL-OIG), Los Angeles area, made the announcement.

This case was investigated by the DOL-OIG. US Assistant Prosecutor Jim Fang is pursuing the case.

On May 17, 2021, the Attorney General created the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Working Group to mobilize the resources of the Department of Justice in partnership with government agencies to strengthen efforts to combat and prevent the pandemic fraud. The Working Group strengthens efforts to investigate and prosecute the most culpable national and international criminal actors and assists agencies tasked with administering relief programs to prevent fraud, among other methods, by scaling up and integrating mechanisms coordination, identifying resources and techniques for uncovering fraudulent actors and their programs, and sharing and leveraging information and knowledge gained from previous enforcement efforts. For more information on the Department’s response to the pandemic, please visit https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus.

Anyone with information about allegations of attempted fraud involving COVID-19 can report it by calling the Department of Justice’s National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) hotline at 866-720 -5721 or via the NCDF web complaint form at: https: // www. .justice.gov / disaster-fraud / ncdf-disaster-complaint-form.

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