Bruce Jin, 61, of Los Angeles, had pleaded guilty in the case in January 2025, admitting that he and other co-conspirators “conspired to obtain state unemployment compensation funds, and other public funds, through fraudulent means,” the DOJ said in a May 1 statement.

Jin and two co-conspirators “entered into a series of agreements to make it appear as if they were operating legitimate businesses selling masks and other COVID19 personal protective equipment,” the DOJ said.

“The funds that the defendants obtained and laundered through their companies were derived from fraudulently obtained state unemployment compensation (‘UC’) benefits. The indictment alleges that Economic Impact Payments, or ‘stimulus payments,’ were also obtained through fraudulent means.”

Economic Impact Payments were offered by the federal government during the COVID-19 pandemic to provide financial relief to Americans.

Some unnamed members of the scheme, including a few believed to be from China, set up thousands of accounts at banks in the United States, using the personal information of identity theft victims. The unemployment compensation funds were then routed to these accounts.

Once the funds were credited, they were transferred to companies controlled by Jin and the co-conspirators.

When Jin received the funds, he made international wire transfers to a bank account linked to a company in China, totaling more than $35 million. An additional $2 million was transferred by Jin directly into the bank account of a Chinese person who controlled the company.

In addition to the 144-month prison term, Jin was ordered to forfeit more than $59 million in U.S. currency and other property. Two co-conspirators in the case, both from Los Angeles, have pleaded guilty and are set to be sentenced this month.

Unemployment compensation is paid by a state to workers who lost their jobs due to layoffs or other circumstances, such as business downsizing. The compensation is intended to provide these workers with a source of income until they can find work.

On April 21, the DOJ announced that, in another case of unemployment compensation fraud, a Pennsylvania resident was indicted by a federal grand jury.

The defendant in the case worked at the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry. While working at the department, the defendant allegedly accepted unauthorized payments from people who filed for unemployment compensation. The payments were made to the defendant to expedite and secure certain benefits for the applicants.

According to the DOJ, the defendant’s actions resulted in $528,449 in unemployment compensation benefits being paid to claimants who were not entitled to them.

“This investigation and the resulting Indictment send a clear message that government employees who steal and misuse public funds will be brought to justice,” U.S. attorney Troy Rivetti said.

“Our office and our law enforcement partners are committed to rooting out fraud and safeguarding the public treasury.”

In an October 2025 update, the IRS warned Americans that some states were experiencing a surge in fraudulent unemployment claims being filed by organized crime groups using stolen identities.

People who receive mail from a government agency about an unemployment claim or payment that they did not file for may be a victim of such an identity theft scam, the IRS said.

The agency warned that fraudsters were creating websites mimicking legitimate unemployment benefit sites, including those of the state workforce agency (SWA), to dupe people and steal their personal information.

“To lure consumers to these fake websites, fraudsters send spam text messages and emails purporting to be from an SWA and containing a link,” the IRS said.

“The fake websites are designed to trick consumers into thinking they are applying for unemployment benefits and disclosing personally identifiable information and other sensitive data. That information can then be used by fraudsters to commit identity theft.”

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NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump defended his real estate empire and his presidency in a face-to-face clash with the New York attorney general suing him for fraud, testifying at a closed-door grilling in April that his company is flush with cash — and claiming he saved “millions of lives” by deterring nuclear war when he was president.

Trump, in testimony made public Wednesday, said it was a “terrible thing” that Attorney General Letitia James was suing him over claims he made on annual financial statements about his net worth and the value of his skyscrapers, golf courses and other assets.

James released Trump’s 479-page deposition transcript in a flurry of court filings ahead of a Sept. 22 hearing where Judge Arthur Engoron could resolve part or all of the case before it is scheduled to go to trial in October. She pointed to evidence that shows Trump inflated his net worth by up to 39%, or more than $2 billion, in some years.

Sitting across from James at her Manhattan office on April 13, Trump said, “you don’t have a case and you should drop this case.” Noting his contributions to the city’s skyline, Trump said “it’s a shame” that “now I have to come and justify myself to you.”

Trump testified that he considered being president “the most important job in the world,” listing as accomplishments his hard line on China, ensuring Russia didn’t invade Ukraine on his watch and preventing North Korea’s Kim Jong Un from launching a nuclear attack.

“I think you would have nuclear holocaust if I didn’t deal with North Korea,” Trump testified. “I think you would have a nuclear war, if I weren’t elected. And I think you might have a nuclear war now, if you want to know the truth.”

James is urging Engoron to grant summary judgment and issue an immediate verdict endorsing her claim that Trump and his company defrauded lenders, insurers and others by lying about his wealth and the value of his assets.

To rule, Engoron needs only to answer two questions, James’ office argued: whether Trump’s annual financial statements were false or misleading, and whether he and the Trump Organization used those statements while conducting business transactions.

“The answer to both questions is a resounding ‘yes’ based on the mountain of undisputed evidence” in the case, James’ special litigation counsel Andrew Amer said in a 100-page summary judgment motion.

Trump’s lawyers are asking Engoron to dismiss the case entirely.

They argue that many of the lawsuit’s allegations are barred by the state’s statute of limitations and that James has no standing to sue him because the entities he allegedly defrauded “have never complained, and indeed have profited from their business dealings with President Trump and his corporate empire.”

Even if Engoron rules on the fraud claim, he would still preside over a non-jury trial on six other remaining claims in the lawsuit if it is not settled.

Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination in next year’s presidential election, has claimed the lawsuit is part of a “politically motivated Witch Hunt” led by James and other Democrats.

James’ lawsuit, involving allegations about Trump’s pre-presidential life as a businessman, is one of many legal headaches he faces as he seeks a return to the White House.

Trump has been indicted four times in the last five months — accused in Georgia and Washington, D.C., of plotting to overturn his 2020 election loss, in Florida of hoarding classified documents, and in Manhattan of falsifying business records related to hush money paid on his behalf. Some of Trump’s criminal trials are scheduled to overlap with the busy presidential primary season.

James sued Trump in September 2022, alleging what she dubbed the “Art of the Steal” — inflating his net worth and the value of assets like golf courses, hotels and his Mar-a-Lago estate on his annual statements of financial interest for at least a decade. Her lawsuit seeks $250 million in penalties and a ban on Trump doing business in New York.

Trump said he only had the financial statements made so he could see a list of his many properties and said he “never felt that these statements would be taken very seriously,” but that financial institutions would occasionally ask for them. Some of the values listed were based on “guesstimates,” he conceded.

“I have a clause in there that says, ‘Don’t believe the statement. Go out and do your own work.’ This statement is ‘worthless.’ It means nothing,” Trump testified. Given the disclaimer, he said, “you’re supposed to pay no credence to what we say whatsoever.”

Trump answered questions with such verbosity at the April deposition — veering from evasiveness to bluster to filibuster at times — that one lawyer worried his seven hours of sworn testimony could go until midnight.

It was a reversal from a deposition last year, before James filed her lawsuit, in which Trump refused to answer all but a few procedural questions. At that earlier deposition, Trump invoked his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination more than 400 times.

Trump testified in April that his company, the Trump Organization, has over $400 million in cash. He claimed Mar-a-Lago is worth $1.5 billion and a golf course he owns near Miami is worth $2 billion or $2.5 billion. He said he believes he could sell another golf course he owns in Scotland to the Saudi-backed LIV golf league “for a fortune.”

“Do you know the banks were fully paid? Do you know the banks made a lot of money?” Trump testified. “Do you know I don’t believe I ever got even a default notice, and even during COVID, the banks were all paid? And yet you’re suing on behalf of banks, I guess. It’s crazy. The whole case is crazy.”

Trump is not expected to testify in court if the case goes to trial, but video recordings of Trump’s depositions could be played.

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DETROIT (AP) — A group of Tesla shareholders suing CEO Elon Musk over some 2018 tweets about taking the company private is asking a federal judge to order Musk to stop commenting on the case.

Lawyers for stockholders of the Austin, Texas-based company also say in court documents that the judge in the case has ruled that Musk’s tweets about having “funding secured” to take Tesla private were false, and that his comments also violate a 2018 court settlement with U.S. securities regulators in which Musk and Tesla each agreed to pay $20 million fines.

Musk, during an interview Thursday at the TED 2022 conference, said he had the funding to take Tesla private in 2018. He called the Securities and Exchange Commission a profane name and said he only settled because bankers told him they would stop providing capital if he didn’t, and Tesla would go bankrupt.

The interview and court action came just days after Musk, the world’s richest person, made a controversial offer to take over Twitter and turn it into a private company with a $43 billion offer that equals $54.20 per share. Twitter’s board on Friday adopted a “poison pill” strategy that would make it prohibitively expensive for Musk to buy the shares.

In court documents filed Friday, lawyers for the Tesla shareholders alleged that Musk is trying to influence potential jurors in the lawsuit. They contend that Musk’s 2018 tweets about having the money to take Tesla private at $420 per share were written to maniuplate the stock price, costing shareholders money.

Now, lawyers say Musk is campaigning to influence possible jurors as the case gets closer to trial.

“Musk’s comments risk confusing potential jurors with the false narrative that he did not knowingly make misrepresentations with his Aug. 7, 2018 tweets,” the lawyers wrote. “His present statements on that issue, an unsubtle attempt to absolve himself in the court of public opinion, will only have a predjudicial influence on a jury.”

The lawyers asked Judge Edward M. Chen in San Francisco to restrain Musk from making further public comments on the issue until after the trial. Chen gave Musk’s lawyers until Wednesday to respond.

Alex Spiro, a lawyer representing Musk, wrote in an email Sunday that the plaintiffs’ lawyers are seeking a big payout. “Nothing will ever change the truth, which is that Elon Musk was considering taking Tesla private and could have,” he wrote. “All that’s left some half-decade later is random plaintiffs lawyers trying to make a buck and others trying to block that truth from coming to light, all to the detriment of free speech.”

But the shareholders’ lawyers wrote that Chen already ruled that Musk’s tweets were false and misleading, and “that no reasonable juror could conclude otherwise.”

Judge Chen’s order, issued April 1, was not in the public court file as of Sunday. Adam Apton, a lawyer for the shareholders, said it was sealed because it has evidence that Musk and Tesla say is confidential. It will stay sealed until the parties agree if anything should remain sealed, he wrote in an email. “Our motion for TRO (temporary restraining order) accurately desribes the issues decided by the court,” Apton wrote.

After Musk’s 2018 tweets, the SEC filed a complaint against him alleging securities law violations. Musk then agreed to the fine and signed the court agreement. Part of the agreement says that Musk “will not take any action or make or permit to be made any public statement denying, directly or indirectly, any allegation in the complaint or creating the impression that the complaint is without factual basis.”

If Musk violates the agreement, the SEC may ask the court to scrap it and restore the securities fraud complaint, the agreement says. A message was left Sunday seeking comment from the SEC.

Spiro, on behalf of Musk, already has asked a Manhattan federal court to throw out the agreement. He contends the SEC is using the pact and “near limitless resources” to chill Musk’s speech. Court documents filed by Spiro say Musk signed the agreement when Tesla was a less mature company and SEC action jeopardized its financing.

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