California woman and man charged with allegedly stealing over $2 million in illegal COVID relief funds

A man and woman from San Bernardino County were arrested following a nine-count federal grand jury indictment alleging they obtained more than $2.1 million in Covid-19 relief funds.

Lisa Puente, 43, of Rialto, and Arthur Marquez, 53, were arrested on Nov. 5 for allegedly submitting more than 120 fraudulent applications for unemployment insurance benefits using stolen identities from California state prisoners and out of state victims.

They claimed in their applications that the victims used to live and work in California when most victims did not live in California.

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Prosecutors from the U.S. Department of Justice stated in a press release that they ran the scheme from Feb. 2020 to Aug. 2023.

“The fraudulent applications falsely stated that they were individuals whose employment had been negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, which triggered eligibility for [unemployment insurance] benefits under federal law,” according to the release.  

Puente and Marquez used debit cards generated by the claims to withdraw the benefits from ATMs as well as purchases from local businesses.

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They are currently charged with six counts of mail fraud, one count of use of unauthorized access devices and one count each of aggravated identity theft.

“If convicted, the defendants would face a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison for each mail fraud count, up to 10 years in federal prison for the unauthorized access device count, and a mandatory two-year consecutive prison sentence for the aggravated identity theft count,” officials said.

They are both out on bond until their scheduled trial on Dec. 30.