A full time TSA officer at Boston’s airport from November 2018 through October 2021 is in a bit of trouble for filing for Pandemic Unemployment Insurance – and filing the weekly certifications claiming he had no income – between May 2020 and September 2021. This allowed him to pocket $47,526.
He’s been caught and charged with one count of wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. He agreed to plead guilty, in exchange for prosecutors recommending a sentence at the low end of sentencing guidelines, plus restitution and forfeiture.
The odd thing is this seemed to happen a lot with TSA screeners.
- Orlando: Former TSA officer sentenced to 6 months after $16,435 in unemployment benefits were taken while he was still employed. This was part of an investigation specifically focused on Deparmtnet of Homeland Security employees taking unemployment while being paid for government work at the agency.
- Massachusetts TSA worker: Former screener sentenced for workers’ compensation fraud and ordered to repay $38,052.
- Newark TSA screener: Supervisory officer sentenced to 30 months for taking bribes and kickbacks tied to theft from passengers at the checkpoint.
The Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General said its work led to over 1,000 people charged with Unemployment Insurance fraud over pandemic-era programs. Office of Inspector General. GAO estimates this style of fraud cost $100 – $135 billion or 11% – 15% of total benefit payments between April 2020 and May 2023.
Pandemic Unemployment Assistance was for people not eligible for regular unemployment insurnace (and related extensions) who were unemployed, partially unemployed, or unable or unavailable to work because of a specified COVID-19 reason they self-certified. States were required to use the exact COVID reason on their claim and attestation forms.
Claimants had to keep filing certifications to claim benefits for the prior week, basically “self-certify continued eligibility for that week,” including selecting the applicable COVID reason(s). After the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, states were required to start reviewing documentation supporting an applicant’s self-certification of prior employment or self-employment. Some people even filed in multiple states, using different social security numbers.
At the start of the pandemic there was a goal to ‘push out’ money, as much and as fast as possible. Some people followed the rules of the programs, while others scammed them. There are ways to limit the fraud but those take time and limit access, which was the opposite of the goal in early 2020.
I wonder if the best defense a TSA screener claiming pandemic unemployment while working had is that working for TSA isn’t really working?
This begs the question- where were the government’s computer matching data programs?
The thing is tsa has to report wages monthly by Ss number to mass Det so mass det would have caught it
I’m surprised the boy geniuses at Dogie didn’t identify the fraud.
T S A…”too stupid for America” or “Thousands Standing Around”
Corruption (and fraud) is a scourge, however large or small. While it’s good to see accountability on the lower end, it’d sure be nice to see major corporations and the global kleptocrats reigned in. Like, let’s also stop insider trading, lobbyists, ‘buy, borrow, die,’ and other loopholes that feed this beast. Yet, we seem to only go after ‘small fish’ anymore. Hmm. See The Chickenshit Club. Good read.
They by no means were alone. I mostly fake “pandemic” needed to have a mostly fake “response.” No surprise by the number of grifters seeing an opportunity.
Is it fraud though, since they were not getting paid. Now when they got retro pay, they need to pay it back.
@Uncle Jeff: This isn’t talking about the recent government shutdown. The person in the main story admitted to collecting unemployment for 15 months while still working and getting paid by TSA.
Pretty much what I expect from TSA.
My husband is a TSA supervisor he is at his job every day during the shutdown. The only time he had something off is because he asked for it off and the beginning of the year so there’s a lot of people like that and they’re not getting their bonus.
Ineligible claims happen very often in unemployment programs (the rules are complex and eligibility checks can’t always be done real-time for a variety of equally complicated reasons). However, these rarely end in prosecution.
You actually don’t want a system that can perfectly protect against fraud, because it’d make it very difficult for tens of millions of eligible claimants with complicated cases to receive benefits. Keep in mind, 40% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and it doesn’t take much to tip them over into homelessness. That doesn’t benefit anyone, so it’s better to accept a risk of fraud and pay the benefits as long as you have done a reasonable level of due diligence. That typically amounts to positively identifying the individual making the claim (it was difficult for some agencies to do this during the pandemic, which is how offshore criminals were able to make fraudulent claims using stolen identities).
In this case, investigators would have needed to determine that the claim was fraudulent, and determine that the person making the claim is the same as the person who received the money. During the pandemic there was a lot of confusion about eligibility for programs (policies changed frequently and weren’t messaged well) so there’s a lot of benefit of the doubt. The majority of improperly paid claims are settled via a repayment agreement and there is no prosecution.
I’m not privy to the details of this case but for it to end up in court like this, there was likely an attempt to mislead investigators and deflect responsibility. Bottom line, if you ever claimed unemployment benefits you weren’t entitled to receive, the unemployment office will usually be happy to work with you. You’ll have to pay back benefits you shouldn’t have received, but that’s usually the worst that will happen if there is any benefit of the doubt to be given. In this case, I assume there was none, based on the facts that came to light.
“The odd thing is this seemed to happen a lot with TSA screeners.”
“Odd?” Why are you shocked that there is a correlation between working for TSA and grifting off the taxpayers? :-0
Who could have possibly predicted that handing out billions in “free money” would lead to rampant fraud??
There are 60,000 to 65,000 people working at the TSA. You identify four in this article and make hugely unfair accusations about all TSA employees.
Do you not think one could find 4 online bloggers that cheated on their employment insurance claims?
Gee whiz… how safe can we really be if people as dishonest as this are the ones making sure I have less than 3oz of liquid!?!