Baltimore Woman Pleads Guilty to Accepting Bribes

Summary

Press release of the U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Maryland, dated September 17, 2025. Natonia Johnson of Baltimore pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in connection with a bribery scheme she conducted as a Maryland Department of Labor contractor to issue fraudulent unemployment insurance funds. According to the guilty plea, between June 2020 and about November 2021 she helped friends, family members and strangers file and obtain benefits they were not eligible for, and as a contractor staffing the agency's call center she removed flags and fraud holds from co-conspirators' accounts. She received between $200 and $500 from each co-conspirator and defrauded the agency of more than $250,000. She faces a maximum of 20 years in prison, and sentencing is scheduled for January 6, 2026.

Summary drafted by a model from the document's text below and checked by script against that text before publication. It is a navigation aid, not a reading of what the document proves. Where AI is used

Full text

PRESS RELEASE

Baltimore Woman Pleads Guilty to Accepting
Bribes and Defrauding Maryland Unemployment
Insurance Program
Wednesday, September 17, 2025

For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Maryland
Former Maryland Department of Labor contractor admits to authorizing more
than $250,000 in fraudulent unemployment benefits scheme.


Baltimore, Maryland – Natonia Johnson, 52, of Baltimore, Maryland, pled guilty today,
to one count of wire fraud in connection with a bribery scheme that she conducted as a
Maryland Department of Labor (MD-DOL) contractor to issue fraudulent unemployment
insurance funds.

Kelly O. Hayes, U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland, announced the guilty plea with
Special Agent in Charge Troy W. Springer, National Capital Region, U.S. Department of
Labor – Office of Inspector General (DOL-OIG), and Acting Special Agent in Charge Evan
Campanella, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) – Baltimore.

Unemployment insurance (UI) is a joint state and federal program that provided
monetary benefits to eligible beneficiaries. UI payments are intended to provide
temporary financial assistance to lawful workers who became unemployed through no
fault of their own. Beginning in or around March 2020, in response to the COVID-19
pandemic, several federal programs expanded UI eligibility and increased UI benefits.
This included the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program, Federal Pandemic
Unemployment Compensation, and Lost Wages Assistance Program.

In Maryland, residents seeking UI benefits submit online applications. In the application,
applicants must answer specific questions to establish eligibility to receive UI benefits,
including their name, Social Security Number (SSN), and mailing address, among other
things. Additionally, the State requires applicants to self-certify that they are
unemployed, partially employed, or unable to work for a COVID-19-related reason. The
MD-DOL relies upon the information from the application to determine UI benefits
eligibility.
According to the guilty plea, between June 2020 until about November 2021, Johnson
executed a scheme to defraud the MD-DOL and United States. Johnson assisted friends,
family members, and strangers with fraudulently filing and obtaining UI benefits they
were not eligible to receive in exchange for bribes and kickback payments.

Initially, Johnson assisted individuals with uploading fraudulent documents in support of
UI claims. She then falsely asserted that these individuals were self-employed. Later,
through her employment as a contractor at Company #1, Johnson staffed MD-DOL’s UI
call center and gained access to MD-DOL’s internal UI database. Then Johnson used this
access to remove flags and holds on various co-conspirators’ UI accounts that
established these individuals were ineligible to receive UI benefits. Additionally, Johnson
backdated claims, removed fraud holds, and caused MD-DOL to issue additional UI
benefits that these co-conspirators were ineligible to receive. In exchange, Johnson
received between $200 and $500 from each co-conspirator whose claims she assisted
with. Through the scheme, Johnson defrauded the MD-DOL of more than $250,000 in UI
claims.

Johnson faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, followed by three years of
supervised release. Actual sentences for federal crimes are typically less than the
maximum penalties. A federal district court judge determines sentencing after
considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors. Sentencing is
scheduled for January 6, 2026, at 11 a.m.

The District of Maryland Strike Force is one of five strike forces established throughout
the United States by the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute COVID-
19 fraud, including fraud relating to the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security
(CARES) Act. The CARES Act was designed to provide emergency financial assistance to
Americans suffering the economic effects caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The strike
forces focus on large-scale, multi-state pandemic relief fraud perpetrated by criminal
organizations and transnational actors. The strike forces are interagency law
enforcement efforts, using prosecutor-led and data analyst-driven teams designed to
identify and bring to justice those who stole pandemic relief funds.

For more information on the Department’s response to the pandemic,
visit justice.gov/coronavirus. Anyone with information about allegations of attempted
fraud involving COVID-19 can report it by calling the Department of Justice’s National
Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) Hotline at 866-720-5721 or via the NCDF Web
Complaint Form at: justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form.

U.S. Attorney Hayes commended the DOL-OIG and HSI for their work in the
investigation. Ms. Hayes thanked Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph L. Wenner who is
prosecuting the federal case. She also recognized the Maryland COVID-19 Strike Force
and Paralegal Specialist Joanna B.N. Huber for their valuable assistance.

For more information about the Maryland U.S. Attorney’s Office, its priorities, and
resources available to report fraud, visit justice.gov/usao-md and justice.gov/usao-
md/community-outreach.

                                          ###

Contact
Kevin Nash
USAMD.Press@usdoj.gov
410-209-4946

Updated September 17, 2025


File and source

File

2025-09-23-Baltimore-Woman-Pleads-Guilty-to-Accepting-Bribes-and-Defrauding-Maryland-Unemployment-Insurance-Pr.pdf

Size

107,362 bytes

SHA-256

c398fce69811ef0d63fce2e17b58b5f2dd167e89e0459817dc9240a2ed3cbbc9

Our copy

2025-09-23-Baltimore-Woman-Pleads-Guilty-to-Accepting-Bribes-and-Defrauding-Maryland-Unemployment-Insurance-Pr.pdf

Original

www.oig.dol.gov