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ProfilePerson

Larry D. Turner

Oversight and enforcement

Unemployment insurance
Type
Person
Role
Oversight and enforcement
Programs
Unemployment insurance
Updated

The profile

The Department of Labor Inspector General who produced the pandemic unemployment-insurance fraud estimates and was removed in January 2025.

Identity and role

Larry D. Turner was Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Labor. Deputy Inspector General September 2014 – June 2020; Acting Inspector General from June 2020; sworn in as Inspector General in 2021 (House witness bio); removed January 2025 (Bloomberg Law).

Biography / career arc

  • Before: career oversight official; DOL Deputy IG from 2014.
  • During: led DOL-OIG through the pandemic as Acting then confirmed IG. His office produced the figure of $45.6 billion in potentially fraudulent UI payments in four high-risk areas, March 2020 to April 2022.
  • After: removed in January 2025 in the mass firing of inspectors general (Bloomberg Law).

Pandemic-relief / PPP-EIDL role

DOL-OIG's UI oversight page reports that, as of January 2025, its UI-fraud investigations had produced more than 1,050 search warrants, more than 2,075 charged individuals, more than 1,550 convictions, 39,000 months of incarceration, and more than $1.1 billion in investigative monetary results. The office also referred more than 45,000 fraud matters that did not meet federal prosecution guidelines back to states.

His February 8, 2023 congressional testimony concerned DOL-OIG's oversight of the unemployment insurance program during COVID-19 (its text is not machine-extractable). Turner is the unemployment-fraud counterpart to Hannibal Ware at SBA OIG. Turner served on PRAC, chaired by Michael Horowitz (witness bio); both were removed in the January 2025 inspector-general firings (see the Ware profile).

Bloomberg Law's report on his removal discusses the statutory notice requirement for removing inspectors general.

Complaints, oversight reports, press accounts, and congressional letters are treated as allegations or descriptions unless the cited documents show a plea, conviction, consent order, settlement, judgment, sentence, or other formal resolution.

Where they are now (2025–2026)

No later public-sector appointment, PPP-company role, lobbying registration, or defense-bar move has been documented.

Sources held in this archive

Original source documents and archived captures

Sources

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