Mother, daughter sentenced for prison unemployment insurance fraud

A mother and daughter received federal prison sentences Monday for a $250,000 unemployment insurance fraud scheme run partly through Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla.

Yesterday, Makiah Miles, 30, of Compton, was sentenced to 21 months and Apryl Weston, 51, of Santa Maria, to five months in prison and five months home detention for submitting fraudulent unemployment insurance claims to the California Employment Development Department in the names of inmates, U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced.

According to court documents, Miles was an inmate at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, and Weston is her mother. Miles had previously been convicted of DUI manslaughter.

From June through December 2020, Miles obtained other inmates’ names, dates of birth, and social security numbers and sent that information to Weston to submit claims in those inmates’ identities as well as Miles’ own identity. The underlying applications misrepresented that Miles and the other inmates worked as childcare providers, cosmetologists, hairdressers and other occupations and become unemployed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The fraudulent claims were worth nearly $250,000.