Investigation Leads to the Indictment of Trio Including Mother, Daughter, and Friend in $7.3 Million Pandemic Unemployment Assistance

Summary

Press release dated August 20, 2025, from Columbus, Ohio. The Franklin County Grand Jury returned an indictment against Markeya Smith, Brandi Smith and Shirkara Reggins, along with 12 other co-conspirators, on counts including Engaging in a Pattern of Corrupt Activity, Theft, Tampering with Records, Telecommunications Fraud and Money Laundering, related to fraudulent Pandemic Unemployment Assistance claims. The release says investigators found the three, who worked on claims for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, improperly cleared issues and inflated claimant incomes and received cash or electronic payments from claimants. Markeya Smith released nearly $3 million in improper benefits after her access should have ended, and the trio together released over $7 million.

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“Investigation Leads to the Indictment of Trio Including Mother, Daughter, and Friend in $7.3 Million Pandemic Unemployment Assistance.” Original at www.oig.dol.gov. Archived at Pandemic Darlings, https://pandemicdarlings.com/source-documents/2025-08-21-investigation-leads-to-the-indictment-of-trio-including-mot-7cee3c4bdf/, SHA-256 6cef82345f434830f8322ad46ee43b17e323818007cc1110ec084a601ee7c7d7.

Full text

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

INVESTIGATION LEADS TO THE INDICTMENT OF TRIO INCLUDING MOTHER, DAUGHTER, AND FRIEND
IN $7.3 MILLION PANDEMIC UNEMPLOYMENT ASSISTANCE FRAUD SCHEME
Columbus, Ohio, August 20, 2025

On August 19th, the Franklin County Grand Jury returned an indictment against Markeya Smith, Brandi Smith,
and Shirkara Reggins, along with 12 other co-conspirators for various criminal offenses related to fraudulent
claims involving the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program. These counts include Engaging in a
Pattern of Corrupt Activity, Theft, Tampering with Records, Telecommunications Fraud, and Money Laundering.

The indictment is the result of a collaborative investigation between the Franklin County Prosecuting Attorney,
Ohio State Highway Patrol, Office of the Ohio Inspector General, United States Department of Labor – Office of
Inspector General, and Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS).

In 2020, because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the increased unemployment of millions of Americans,
Congress passed various programs to address the crisis, including the PUA program. ODJFS, the agency
responsible for distributing PUA benefits in Ohio, was inundated with unemployment compensation claims. This
increase in claims necessitated ODJFS to hire an outside contractor to help process the claims. In fiscal year
2021, ODJFS disbursed approximately $7.6 billion in pandemic unemployment benefits. ODJFS later identified
millions of dollars of the disbursals as fraudulent.

In October of 2022, ODJFS referred an allegation of wrongdoing concerning Customer Service Representative
(CSR) Markeya Smith, who worked for Randstad as an ODJFS contractor assigned to the Ohio PUA program.
ODJFS alleged Markeya Smith improperly cleared issues and inflated claimant incomes on PUA claims to
fraudulently increase the weekly benefit amounts paid to the claimants. Also in October of 2022, ODJFS referred
an allegation of wrongdoing concerning former intermittent ODJFS CSR Brandi Smith. ODJFS alleged Brandi
Smith improperly accessed and/or authorized payments on PUA claims.

From their review of ODJFS records, investigators found a significant overlap on PUA claims accessed by the two
women. Investigators also learned that Markeya and Brandi Smith were related and were both acquaintances with
Insight Global subcontracted employee CSR “Cherita” Reggins, who also improperly accessed and authorized
payments on PUA claims to which the claimants were not entitled. Investigators determined that “Cherita”
Reggins was actually Shirkara Reggins who was using her mother’s name (“Cherita”) for her employment at
Insight Global and later at ODJFS. In exchange for releasing improper PUA benefit funds, investigators
determined the trio received cash or electronic payments from the claimants. The investigation also found that the
trio had frequently used recruiters to find additional PUA claimants who desired to have issues removed from their
claims and/or have their claims improperly inflated. In exchange for their roles in the scheme, the recruiters also
received fees. Investigators discovered that Markeya Smith had access to the ODJFS benefits system after being
terminated by Randstad and released nearly $3 million in improper PUA benefit payments before her access was
revoked. Investigators concluded that Markeya and Brandi Smith, and Shirkara Reggins had together performed
unauthorized actions in the ODJFS benefit system that resulted in the fraudulent release of over $7 million in
improper PUA benefit payments.

Ohio Inspector General Report of Investigation file number 2022-CA00002,00024,00025-Preliminary is now
available at: https://watchdog.ohio.gov/2025-investigations.

Contact:
Office of the Ohio Inspector General
(614) 644-9110
Find the Office of the Ohio Inspector General on LinkedIn and X

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Original: www.oig.dol.gov