Guilty plea in $1.2 million EDD fraud that filed hundreds of California claims from same address [The Sacramento Bee]

One man charged in an unemployment insurance fraud case that prosecutors say collected $1.2 million from California’s troubled Employment Development Department pleaded guilty Tuesday in Sacramento federal court, while a second may plead guilty next week in the case.

The fraud ring operated out of an apartment in Maryland and involved more than 200 claims filed with EDD from the same Hyattsville apartment address, with the state agency ultimately approving payments for 97 of them, court papers say.

Three men were charged in the case, which prosecutors say targeted Arizona, Maryland and North Carolina, in addition to California.

On Tuesday, one of the men entered a guilty plea before U.S. District Judge Dale A. Drozd.

Ayodeji Jonathan Sangode, a 24-year-old college student and cook, pleaded guilty to access device fraud, a felony that could result in a sentence of up to 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The charge stems from Sangode’s use of a Bank of America debit card loaded with $5,000 in fraudulently obtained EDD funds, and sentencing was set for Jan. 10. Sangode was represented by William F. Portanova.

Quazeem Owolabi Adeyinka, a Nigerian citizen, had been expected to enter a plea Tuesday but had his case postponed one week after a request by his federal defender, Doug Beevers.

“The plan is still for a guilty plea at some point, but I believe next week we will have everything worked out,” Beevers said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Artuz did not object to the delay, but noted that a deadline for Adeyinka to sign a plea agreement is Wednesday.

Both men are out of custody and appeared via a Zoom hearing. Charges against a third defendant, Olamide Yusuf Bakare, are pending and the next hearing for him is set for November.

Court papers say the scam involved filing unemployment applications claiming individuals had lost jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic as an accountant, computer consultant, librarian or other jobs, and largely targeted California’s EDD agency, which was the subject of a worldwide fraud during the pandemic that resulted in $20 billion in fraudulent claims.

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