A 40-year-old woman from Bloomington is going to jail after defrauding the federal government to the tune of $4.7 million.
Tequisha Solomon pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in December of 2022 for submitting over 200 bogus COVID-era unemployment and business loan applications on behalf of herself and others in Minnesota, Illinois, and California.
In total, she sought over $7 million in government money, even charging customers up to $2,000 each to file on their behalf.
District Judge Eric Tostrud sentenced Solomon to 90 months (7 1/2 years) in federal prison, U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger announced Wednesday. She will also undergo three years of supervised release.
Solomon’s behavior is not without precedent. In January of this year, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that more than $60 billion in unemployment benefits were paid out under false pretenses between April 2020 and December 2021 during the height of COVID-19.
In September 2022, the Department of Labor announced that 1,000 people were charged in connection to unemployment fraud and over $45 billion in potentially false pandemic-related unemployment requests had been identified.
“Hundreds of billions in pandemic funds attracted fraudsters seeking to exploit the
UI program — resulting in historic levels of fraud and other improper payments,” said Department of Labor Inspector General Larry Turner at the time.
The GAO had encouraged the Department of Labor in October 2021 to follow specific anti-fraud measures in order to protect taxpayer dollars from being spent on false claims. However, the department did not implement an antifraud strategy in line with the GAO’s recommendations, saying its own internal processes were sufficient.
According to the Associated Press, prosecutors discovered Solomon lived a “lavish lifestyle” with the illegally obtained money, which she has been ordered to pay back. At one point, she purchased a Jaguar vehicle.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota explains that Solomon, who split her time between Minnesota and Las Vegas, Nev., would apply for unemployment benefits in states she did not live in.
“For instance, in October 2020, Solomon fraudulently claimed UI (unemployment) benefits from the Illinois Department of Employment Security when she was actually residing in Minnesota and was already fraudulently receiving UI benefits from California’s EDD,” the U.S. Attorney’s office said in a press release.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew S. Ebert prosecuted the case against Solomon while the investigation was conducted by the FBI, the U.S. Department of Labor-Office of Inspector General, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, with help from the St. Paul Police Department and the California Employment Development Department.
Stephen Kokx
Stephen Kokx, M.A., is a journalist for LifeSiteNews. He previously worked for the Archdiocese of Chicago under the late Francis Cardinal George. A former community college instructor, Stephen has written and spoken extensively about Catholic social teaching and politics. His essays have appeared in such outlets as Catholic Family News and CatholicVote.org.
