Georgia Woman Sentenced for $30 Million COVID-19 Unemployment Benefit Scam

The accused and co-conspirators used personal information of thousands of identity theft victims to file unemployment insurance claims.

The Department of Justice seal on a lectern ahead of a news conference in Washington on Nov. 28, 2018. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

A woman from Vienna, Georgia, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for taking part in a scheme to scam the Georgia Department of Labor (GaDOL) out of tens of millions of state benefits aimed at helping unemployed people during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tyshion Nautese Hicks, 32, and co-conspirators carried out a scheme that resulted in “more than 5,000 fraudulent unemployment insurance (UI) claims to be filed with the GaDOL, resulting in at least $30 million in stolen benefits,” the Department of Justice (DOJ) said in an Oct. 25 statement.