Former Illinois subcontractor charged in $4.7 million COVID-19 unemployment benefits fraud scheme

A former state of Illinois subcontractor has been charged with orchestrating a fraud scheme to obtain $4.7 million in unemployment benefits for herself and hundreds of other people at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic by falsifying their pay records.

Andrea Wellington, 35, is charged with 21 counts of wire fraud, and co-defendant Randall Easley, 38, is charged with 14 counts of wire fraud, according to federal prosecutors in Chicago.

The indictment does not indicate how Wellington and Easley knew each other before they began their scheme.

According to the indictment filed on Oct. 7, Wellington was hired by the Illinois Department of Employment Security through a subcontractor in July 2021 to work as a customer service representative to handle calls from people seeking unemployment benefits.

As part of her job, she was given access to the state's Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) system, a federal program that provided unemployment benefits to gig workers and freelancers who normally don't qualify for traditional benefits. PUA provided up to 79 weeks of unemployment benefits to gig workers and freelancers who lost work due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the amount of benefits based on their wages from the previous year.

According to the indictment, Wellington was terminated from her job on Oct. 7, 2021, and two days later, she and Easley began scheming to access the PUA system to falsify the wage histories of 471 people, including themselves, to obtain nearly $4.7 million in PUA benefits.

The people they recruited as part of the scheme paid them thousands of dollars in exchange for falsifying their wage histories, which netted each person tens of thousands of dollars in unemployment benefits they did not qualify for.

Wellington and Easley allegedly falsified Wellington's wage history three times between Oct. 9 and Oct. 14, 2021, increasing it from $16,716 to $71,142, netting her two unemployment payments totaling $13,389, according to the indictment.

They also allegedly falsified Easley's wage history from $76 to $69,380 on Oct. 20, 2021, according to the indictment, which did not state how much he was paid in unemployment benefits as a result of the scheme.

At their first court appearance on Oct. 8, they both pleaded not guilty to all charges, and were released on bond. Each count of wire fraud is punishable by a sentence of up to 20 years in prison if they are convicted.

They are due back in court on Oct. 23.