South Bay Life Coach Sentenced To Prison For Fraud

LOS ANGELES, CA — A South Bay man who provided lifestyle and personal development coaching to students in public schools through a nonprofit he founded was sentenced Monday to three years behind bars for fraudulently applying for millions of dollars in COVID-19 jobless benefits, including by using stolen identities.

Reginald Foster Jr., 38, of the Westchester neighborhood of Los Angeles, was also ordered by U.S. District Judge Mark C. Scarsi to pay $1.5 million in restitution, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Foster pleaded guilty last year in downtown Los Angeles to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and bank fraud, and one count of use of unauthorized access devices.

The defendant admitted that from June 2020 to October 2020, he conspired with others to fraudulently obtain unemployment insurance benefits under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, a law Congress passed in March 2020 to help individuals and businesses deal with the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Foster admitted that he and his co-conspirators filed fraudulent applications for benefits in the names of people who had not authorized him to do so, using the identity-theft victims' personal identifying information without their permission.

He included false information on the applications to ensure that the government would approve the applications and send the debit cards through which the benefits were dispersed to a mailing address he used. In total, Foster and his co-conspirators submitted 118 fraudulent applications as part of the scheme, papers filed in Los Angeles federal court show.

Foster used the debit cards to make transfers to his non-profit, Champs Up! LLC, which Foster has said provides guidance programs to middle school students in Los Angeles and Long Beach. Foster also used the cards to make multiple $1,000 withdrawals at ATMs. He then transferred the cards to co- conspirators, who used them to make further ATM withdrawals, he admitted.

Foster and his co-conspirators were able to withdraw almost $1.5 million of the benefits before the California Employment Development Department and Bank of America froze the remaining benefits as soon as the scheme was uncovered, preventing further losses of more than $4 million, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

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