A Jackson State University football player was arrested for allegedly devising a COVID-19-related fraud scheme.
In a statement on Tuesday, The Justice Department (DOJ) said that Abdul-Malik McClain surrendered to authorities on Monday in Los Angeles and was arraigned in a District Court.
According to the indictment, McClain is accused of organizing and assisting a group of other football players in filing fraudulent claims for unemployment benefits.
McClain, 22, is charged with ten counts of mail fraud and two counts of aggravated identity theft.
Claims were also filed with California’s Employment Development Department (EDD), which contained false information about the football players’ supposed prior employment, pandemic-related job loss, and job-seeking efforts in the state, the statement said.
The indictment also alleges that false statements in the UI applications led EDD to authorize Bank of America to mail debit cards to the football players, giving them at least hundreds of dollars and sometimes thousands of dollars in unemployment benefits.
The players would use the debit cards to make cash withdrawals at ATMs and to fund personal expenses, which McClain would seek a cut from players he helped file fraudulent UI applications, according to the statement.
The indictment also alleges that McClain and others filed applications in their own names, in the names of other friends and associates, and in the names of identity theft victims with the claims falsely stating they were self-employed workers, including athletic trainers and tutors who were unemployed due to the pandemic.
Those false claims also induced EDD to authorize Bank of America to issue debit cards in the names of the claimants, where McClain and others cause those cards to be mailed to addresses where they could collect the mail, the statement noted.
During the summer of 2020, McClain caused at least three dozen fraudulent applications to be filed with EDD, with those fraudulent applications seeking at least $903,688 in PUA benefits and leading the EDD to pay out at least $227,736.
If convicted, McClain faces up to 20 years in prison for each mail fraud count and two years in prison for aggravated identity theft count.
McClain, who has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him and was released on a $20,000 bond, will stand trial in February 2022, the DOJ said.
