U.S. Department of Labor OIG, Former Amtrak Employee and Her Husband Plead Guilty to Charges for Fraudulently Obtaining Nearly $1 Million in COVID Jobless Relief (USAO CD-CA 11/22/2022) (2022-12-02)

Summary

A November 22, 2022 press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California announcing that former Amtrak service attendant Lizette Berrios Lathon and her husband Kenneth Andrew Lathon, both of Moreno Valley, pleaded guilty to three-count informations. According to her plea agreement, she used names, Social Security numbers and birth dates of former clients of her tax preparation businesses to file false unemployment claims with the California Employment Development Department. From spring 2020 to March 2021 they caused at least 44 fraudulent claims, with losses of about $998,630. She also obtained about $63,047 in Railroad Retirement Board sickness benefits, and he admitted possessing two unserialized long guns as a felon. Sentencing was set for April 13, 2023.

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Full text

                                     Department of Justice
                                        U.S. Attorney’s Office
                                    Central District of California


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                 Tuesday, November 22, 2022

Former Amtrak Employee and Her Husband Plead Guilty to
  Charges for Fraudulently Obtaining Nearly $1 Million in
                  COVID Jobless Relief
      LOS ANGELES – A former Amtrak employee pleaded guilty today to federal criminal charges
for conspiring with her husband to steal nearly $1 million in COVID-19 pandemic-related
unemployment insurance (UI) benefits and for fraudulently obtaining more than $63,000 in
sickness benefits while she worked at Amtrak.

     Lizette Berrios Lathon, 45, of Moreno Valley, pleaded guilty to a three-count information
charging her with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and wire
fraud.

     Lathon’s husband, Kenneth Andrew Lathon, 48, also of Moreno Valley, pleaded guilty to a
three-count information charging him with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, aggravated
identity theft, and unlawful possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

      According to her plea agreement, from 2014 until the present day, Lizette Lathon, in addition
to her one-time duties as a service attendant for Amtrak, operated at least three tax preparation
businesses: Miracle Tax Service, which was located on Los Angeles’ Miracle Mile; Hardcore Corp.,
which did business as “Hardcore Taxes;” and Lathon LLC. The latter two companies were located in
Moreno Valley.

      Lathon and her husband took advantage of the expanded eligibility for unemployment
insurance benefits made possible by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES)
Act signed into law in 2020. The CARES Act also established the Pandemic Unemployment
Assistance program, which provided additional UI benefits to qualified individuals during the
COVID-19 pandemic including people who did not otherwise qualify for UI such as business owners,
self-employed workers, independent contractors, and those with a limited work history.

     In some instances, Lizette Lathon submitted fraudulent applications with the California
Employment Development Department (EDD) for UI benefits using names, Social Security numbers
and dates of birth that she obtained from former clients of her tax preparation businesses without
the permission of those former clients. On the applications, she falsely asserted inflated income for
the named claimants – many of whom had never lived in California – to receive the maximum
benefit amount.

      As a result of the fraudulent claims she filed, EDD authorized Bank of America to issue debit
cards in the names of Lizette Lathon’s former clients, but the cards were mailed to addresses she and
her family controlled. She and her husband then used the debit cards to make cash withdrawals at
ATMs and to make purchases at retail stores.
     During the conspiracy, which lasted from the spring of 2020 until March 2021, Lathon and her
husband caused at least 44 fraudulent unemployment claims to be filed, resulting in losses to EDD
and the United States Treasury of approximately $998,630.

      Lizette Lathon, who was employed at Amtrak from 2000 to 2021, also schemed to defraud the
Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) out of sickness benefit payments by filing forged and false claims
that stated she was being treated by a medical professional for pain and anxiety. Through this
scheme, which lasted from September 2014 to January 2020, she fraudulently obtained
approximately $63,047 in sickness benefit payments.

     Kenneth Lathon admitted in his plea agreement to possessing a .22-caliber rifle and 12-gauge
shotgun that bore no identifiable serial number despite his criminal history, which includes felony
convictions in California state court for theft, cocaine possession, and fraud.

      United States District Judge Fernando M. Olguin scheduled an April 13, 2023 sentencing
hearing for the defendants, at which time Lizette Lathon will face a statutory maximum sentence of
42 years in federal prison, and Kenneth Lathon will face a statutory maximum sentence of 32 years
in federal prison.

      This matter is being investigated by the United States Railroad Retirement Board Office of
Inspector General; Amtrak Office of Inspector General; the United States Department of Labor
Office of Inspector General; the United States Department of Labor Employee Benefits Security
Administration; the California Employment Development Department; the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; Homeland Security Investigations; and the United States Postal
Inspection Service.

     Assistant United States Attorney Byron R. Tuyay of the Riverside Branch Office is prosecuting
these cases.

      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 Hotline at (866) 720-
5721 or via the NCDF Web Complaint Form at: https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-
disaster-complaint-form.

Topic(s):
Coronavirus
Health Care Fraud
Component(s):
USAO - California, Central
Contact:
Ciaran McEvoy Public Information Officer ciaran.mcevoy@usdoj.gov (213) 894-4465
Press Release Number:
22-250
                                                                             Updated November 22, 2022


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