Criminalizing unemployment benefits

The Department of Workforce Development has not only been extremely aggressive on charging claimants with concealment (aka fraud) for unintentional claim-filing mistakes, but it has also pushed criminal penalties for that concealment. I noted previously that the state’s Department of Justice has been only too eager to follow up with that criminal prosecution for those mistakes. Since then, the state Justice Department hired Jake Westman specifically to prosecute these cases, and he has been busy. Here are his 2016 cases (11 filed that year), his 2017 cases (45 filed that year), and his 2018 cases (37 filed so far). Since he switched in October 2018 to a job at the Division of Hearings & Appeals, Shelly Rusch has taken over his case load. Here are her 2017 (1 case from Westman) and 2018 cases (11 switched from Westman so far). All of these 93 cases charge claimants criminally with unemployment fraud. None so far have gone to trial, and almost all have ended with plea…

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