Florida Woman Sentenced to Federal Prison for Supervising Maryland Unemployment Insurance Scheme

A Florida woman has been sentenced to more than six years in federal prison for orchestrating a scheme to defraud Maryland’s unemployment insurance system during the COVID-19 pandemic. Tiia Woods, 47, of Jacksonville, Florida, was sentenced to 74 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release after pleading guilty to conspiracy charges related to the theft of more than $3.2 million in pandemic relief funds.

According to court documents, Woods led the scheme by obtaining personal identifiable information of real individuals and submitting false unemployment insurance claims to the Maryland Department of Labor. The fraudulent activity occurred between June 2020 and May 2021 and targeted funds that were specifically intended to support workers affected by the COVID-19 national emergency. Woods directed her co-conspirators, including Tyshawna Davis and Devante Smith, by providing detailed instructions on how to expedite claims and how to split the fraudulent proceeds.

The stolen benefits stemmed from programs authorized by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which expanded unemployment insurance eligibility and benefits during the pandemic. Woods and her associates diverted these funds for personal use rather than for the intended purpose of aiding displaced workers. One of Woods’s co-conspirators, Devante Smith, was previously sentenced to 54 months in prison for his involvement in the operation.

The prosecution was part of efforts by the District of Maryland Strike Force, a unit established by the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate large-scale COVID-19-related fraud. The Strike Force is one of five created nationally to identify and prosecute pandemic relief fraud by criminal enterprises. The case was investigated with the support of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General and the FBI’s Baltimore Field Office, along with Bank of America’s fraud detection unit. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Evelyn Lombardo Cusson and Harry M. Gruber handled the prosecution.

Article by multiple RFHC contributors, based upon information from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Maryland

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