Ex-Arizona employees pleaded guilty to taking millions in pandemic unemployment fraud

When the Arizona Department of Economic Security was overwhelmed with unemployment claims, two former state employees took advantage of the chaos brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic to commit millions of dollars’ worth of fraud. Both have now pleaded guilty.

For almost two years in her role as an adjudicator, Jacqueline Espino approved unemployment and pandemic assistance claims for people who weren’t eligible.

The 53-year-old admitted to accepting bribes, costing the state over $140,000 in improper payments and embezzling more than $600,000.

Fellow adjudicator Brandilyn Lorenzen, 48, was also accepting bribes to let ineligible claims skirt by, racking up more than $500,000 in costs and embezzling roughly $2.4 million more.

Along with restitution, a federal judge has sentenced Lorenzen to 30 months in prison. Espino will receive her sentence later this year.

Aron Ketchel with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona prosecuted the case. He said while the bribery was relatively unique, prosecutors have been chasing down fraud cases like this one for years now.

“When we have these larger events like COVID and there's pandemic and you have an expansion of public benefit programs and a real influx of money into these programs, then there will always be people who see it as an opportunity to steal from the government and in effect steal from taxpayers,” Ketchel said. “Anytime we see a large influx of dollars into any type of program, we often see equally large growth in fraud that comes along with that.”

The offending pair, he said, were among many who exploited pandemic relief programs when the priority was getting aid out quickly.

“We appreciate that they’re few and far between,” Ketchel said. “But we understand that these are fairly high profile incidents and have the potential to undermine the public's trust in the government programs, and so that's why we do take it seriously.”

Ketchel said the goal with these recent guilty pleas is to deter others from following suit next time a crisis creates a gap in regular checks and balances.