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HONOLULU, Hawaii (KITV) -- A Kapolei woman was indicted for a fraud scheme worth over $36,000 that took advantage of unemployment insurance during the COVID-19 pandemic.
31-year-old Phoebe Trinh was charged on Thursday, Jan. 23 for nine counts of wire fraud and three counts of aggravated identity theft. The indictment alleges that during the pandemic, Trinh fraudulently obtained at least $36,265 dollars in unemployment insurance.
The charges involve unemployment insurance and Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) programs. The PUA program was created by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act in 2020 to provide emergency assistance. Unemployment payments were given to certain workers who were impacted by the COVID-19 but ineligible for traditional state unemployment insurance benefits.
Trinh received the money by submitting a false claim for unemployment insurance benefits to the Hawaii Department of Industrial and Labor Relations website. She repeatedly falsely certified that she was unemployed and did not receive income. Despite this being untrue, she did this in order to receive benefit payments that she was not entitled to receive.
Each wire fraud charge carries up to 20 years of prison and a $250,000 fine. Each aggravated identity theft count carries two years in prison.
