The Sacramento County District Attorney's office is announcing the bust of the largest Employment Development Department fraud scheme to date out of the Sacramento area. Sacramento law enforcement arrested 35-year old Jamie Williams-Major and 6 others last year, on suspicion of EDD fraud around $250,000. The arrests lead to getting search warrants for Williams-Major's phone and that lead to the discovery of a much bigger scheme. Her total is now estimated to be over $2.75 million in fake EDD claims, 10 times more money than originally suspected.
The Sacramento DA is charging her with 166 counts for using the names of state prison inmates and identity theft victims to make false claims for unemployment payments. This is part of the larger, world wide scheme that defrauded the state department out of billions of dollars that was exposed in 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic. Williams-Major was arrested in Las Vegas and booked into the county jail over the weekend. She is being held without bail and will have a court hearing on Wednesday. Officials say the total amount of EDD fraud is upwards of $20 billion.