Jail worker in fraud
Got jobless aid while working: authorities
A Brooklyn federal jail staffer was arrested Tuesday for pretending to be out of work and raking in thousands of dollars in unemployment benefits from the federal and state government, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Keyawnia Ross ran her cash-grab scheme in 2019 and 2020, submitting falsified unemployment claims to both the feds and New York State’s Department of Labor, taking in a total of $17,700 in extra pay from the government, say prosecutors.
All the while, she showed up to work at federal Bureau of Prisons’ Metropolitan Detention Center in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, according to an indictment unsealed in Brooklyn Federal Court Tuesday.
Ross, who aspired to be a professional chef, was a correctional officer at the Brooklyn lockup in Feb. 2019 when she started filing false unemployment claims to the state’s Department of Labor, the feds said.
“In each submission, Ross certified that she was unemployed, available to take on new work and eligible for benefits when, in fact, she was employed by the BOP, reporting to work and receiving her federal salary,” the feds wrote in the indictment.
In May and June 2020, after the coronavirus pandemic hit the country, Ross again began filing unemployment claims to the state and received enhanced jobless payments under the emergency CARES act, the feds say.
Ross is charged with two counts of theft of public money.
Ross sometimes posted about her job on Facebook, including when the entire Bureau of Prisons went on lockdown June 1, after the police killing of George Floyd.
“We are not at rest! We have soo much to fight for,” she wrote. “Equality. Peace. Justice for everyone MURDERED! The families hurting. Our community is distraught! The revolution is being televised. But word from the wise....Just don’t try and break your family members outta Federal prison ok!? Ok. Bc s—t will get BAD!”
In another post from July 2018, Ross seemed to take aim at some of her MDC colleagues.
“A lotta ppl @MDC Brooklyn don’t have principles, ethics, loyalty. They’re self serving ass two faced individuals and are loyal to the wrong things,” she wrote on Facebook.