Wichita woman got $110K in pandemic unemployment benefits using stolen IDs, feds say
A Wichita woman is facing dozens of federal charges after she allegedly stole other people’s identities and used them to defraud a pandemic-era unemployment assistance program out of more than $110,000.
A federal grand jury in Wichita indicted Kylie Charles, 35, on Tuesday on 17 counts of wire fraud and 17 counts of aggravated identity theft, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Kansas. There was no defense lawyer listed for her in court records Wednesday morning.
Prosecutors say between May 2020 and August 2021 Charles used the names and personal information of people she knew to falsely file for benefits under a CARES Act program that expanded unemployment to business owners, self-employed workers and other people who typically would not qualify. The program was meant to aid people who lost income sources during the COVID-19 pandemic, the news release says.
Charles allegedly submitted applications for unemployment benefits in Kansas, Arizona and Ohio on 17 different occasions, causing the states to collectively issue more than $110,000 in ill-begotten payments to a debit card and bank, credit union and PayPal accounts, according to the indictment.
Most of the payments issued were thousands of dollars each.
The largest, $16,305, was paid by the Ohio State Workforce Agency on Oct. 31, 2020, into financial accounts controlled by Charles, the indictment says.
If convicted, Charles faces up to 20 years in prison on each wire fraud count and up to two years in prison for each count of aggravated identity theft.
