SANTA ANA – A 26-year-old woman was sentenced Monday to more than three years in federal prison for her part in a state unemployment fraud scheme during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sasha Lizette Jimenez, who pleaded guilty May 22 to a count of a conspiracy to commit bank fraud, was ordered by U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney to pay $2.3 million in restitution. Carney sentenced Jimenez to 41 months in federal prison. Jimenez is formerly of Placentia and most recently lived in Riverside County.
Jimenez, who was the bookkeeper for the scheme, caused $2.8 million in phony unemployment insurance benefit cards to be issued with at least $2.3 million withdrawn from the cards, prosecutors said. The scheme involved crimes mainly in Orange, Los Angeles and San Diego counties, prosecutors said.
Jimenez’s ex-boyfriend, Meshach Samuels, 26, of Placentia, was sentenced in October to 90 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $423,087 in restitution.
Samuels charged fees to his social media followers for tips on how to recruit others to help them use a check fraud scheme to steal from banks, prosecutors said. Jimenez admitted to participating in that scheme, prosecutors said.
Samuels and others ran the scheme involving stolen personal identifying information and depositing phony checks into third-party accounts from May 2021 through March 2022, prosecutors said.
Once the money from the bogus checks was registered in a bank account, Samuels and others would take out the cash in amounts lower than $10,000 so they could avoid activity security safeguards, prosecutors said.
The scheme sought about $1.2 million, but led to losses of at least $423,087, prosecutors said.
Samuels was also involved during the pandemic in the scheme to steal about $14,250 in state unemployment benefits using the identities of the deceased or others not eligible for benefits, according to prosecutors.
Samuels has a criminal history that includes aggravated battery on a police officer in Florida with an enhancement for attempted murder, prosecutors said. During an August 2021 traffic stop in Costa Mesa officers recovered a gun and ammunition on him, prosecutors said.
When federal agents searched Samuels’ home in March 2022 they found five guns and ammunition, prosecutors said.
