Tampa, Fla – Kary Stevenson (47) and Corey Quinn (35), both of Tampa, have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit access device fraud and aggravated identity theft. Each faces a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison for conspiracy and a prison sentence of two consecutive years for the aggravated count of identity.

According to the plea agreements, from approximately May 2020 until August 12, 2020, Stevenson and Quinn obtained the personally identifiable information of other people and used that information to submit or cause requests to be submitted. false and fraudulent unemployment insurance (UI). to various state labor agencies to obtain unemployment insurance benefits. These unemployment insurance benefits were then transferred to bank accounts or charged to debit cards issued in the name of others. Stevenson and Quinn then used and attempted to use the fraudulently obtained debit cards to withdraw money from ATMs and to purchase items from retail establishments. The US Department of Labor has calculated that the expected total loss from Stevenson and Quinn’s fraudulent unemployment insurance claims was approximately $ 1,010,353.

In March 2020, the President signed the Families First Coronavirus Response Act and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, which expanded states’ ability to provide unemployment insurance to many workers affected by COVID-19, including included for workers who were not normally eligible. for benefits.

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 online complaint form at: https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form.

This case was investigated by the US Department of Labor – Office of the Inspector General, the US Secret Service and the Tampa Police Department. He is being pursued by Deputy United States Attorneys Gregory D. Pizzo and John Cannizzaro.