Corona Man Who Bilked Taxpayers Amid Pandemic Sentenced To Prison

CORONA, CA — A 30-year-old Corona man who oversaw a scheme that involved filing fraudulent unemployment claims to steal more than $2 million in taxpayer funds during the coronavirus public health closures was sentenced Monday to five years, eight months in federal prison.

Robert Campbell Jr. pleaded guilty in March to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and mail fraud with benefits connected to a public health emergency.

Campbell, who had been free on a $100,000 bond since his arrest in July 2022, was sentenced Monday during a hearing before U.S. District Judge Jesus Bernal at the federal courthouse in downtown Riverside.

The defendant was among eight people charged following a multi-agency investigation that included the Office of the Inspector General of the California Employment Development Department, the U.S. Postal Service and the U.S. Secret Service.

He was the principal defendant and orchestrated the scheme that netted $2.11 million in ill-gotten gains, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Prosecutors said that from March 2020 to July 2021, Campbell led his cohorts in exploiting the expanded eligibility for unemployment insurance benefits provided under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security — CARES — Act signed into law by former President Donald Trump in March 2020.

Monetary aid was available under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance and Lost Wage Assistance programs.

The U.S. Attorney's Office said the conspirators obtained the personally identifiable information, or PII, of dozens of individuals, including names, birth dates and Social Security numbers. Some of the claimants did not reside in California and included a prisoner in Texas and a homeless man, prosecutors said.

Applications were falsified to show claimants' had annual incomes of at least $42,000, and that they were self-employed and financially impacted, suffering hardships, when the lockdowns began, according to the prosecution. Locations of the fictional businesses — barber shops and hair salons — were made up by Campbell and his sidekicks.

The individuals' PII details were utilized to file unemployment claims, leading to "174 fraudulent applications to be filed with EDD, resulting in 125 fraudulent claims to be paid," according to a U.S. Attorney's Office statement.

Campbell's was the final sentence imposed in the fraud case. The other defendants received sentences over the last year ranging from home confinement to 18 months behind bars.

State auditors have estimated the losses due to fraudulent CARES unemployment relief funding claims to be in excess of $30 billion, with money going to numerous parties outside California, prisoners and jail detainees.

Investigations have culminated in multiple state and federal convictions, with some cases still awaiting adjudication in Riverside County.