TRENTON –Attorney General Christopher S. Porrino announced that an Ocean County woman was sentenced to prison today for defrauding the state of $345,213 by filing false claims for unemployment benefits in the names of purported former employees of her defunct tax preparation business.
Erica Rivera, 35, of Beachwood, N.J., was sentenced today to seven years in state prison by Superior Court Judge Peter E. Warshaw in Mercer County.
She pleaded guilty on Sept. 19 to an accusation charging her with second-degree theft by deception and as part of the plea agreement, she executed a consent judgment to pay $345,213 in restitution to the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development.
The state has recovered $31,000 to date which will be applied to that restitution.
Rivera was charged in an investigation by the Division of Criminal Justice Specialized Crimes Bureau.
In pleading guilty, Rivera admitted that, from September 2012 to June 2015, she engaged in a scheme in which she filed false online applications for unemployment benefits and received benefit payments in the names of 24 purported former employees of her tax preparation business, Compassionate Financial Services (“CFS”).
The false applications resulted in 27 unemployment insurance claims, through which Rivera received 521 benefit payments totaling $345,213.
In submitting the false claims, Rivera used the personal identifying information of relatives and acquaintances, including former clients of CFS, who apparently did not know that their personal information was being used.
Those individuals were either never employed by CFS or never filed unemployment claims in New Jersey.
Rivera posed as the claimants in certifying online each week that they met the eligibility requirements to receive benefits.
She also posed as certain claimants when the state labor department telephoned to verify information.