National Roundup

Colorado
AG launches campaign against unemployment fraud statewide
DENVER (AP) — Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser is announcing a statewide campaign to identify and prosecute persons responsible for an estimated 1 million-plus fraudulent claims for unemployment benefits during the coronavirus pandemic.

Weiser says the effort will involve his office, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, the state labor department and district attorneys across the state. A formal announcement was due Thursday.

“The amount of fraud that we’ve seen around this unemployment insurance is staggering,”  Weiser tells Colorado Public Radio. “We want to hold people accountable. And to do so, we need a team.”

Fraudulent claims nationwide have victimized millions of people, including legitimate applicants and unsuspecting victims of identity fraud. Scammers use stolen personal information such as Social Security numbers or birthdays to apply for unemployment benefits. The Colorado Department of Labor and Employment has flagged more than 1 million claims as fraudulent.

Estimates of fraudulent payments range from $6.5 million in Colorado to $11 billion in California, the biggest target. Other estimates, according to AP reporting across the states, range from several hundred thousand dollars in smaller states such as Alaska and Wyoming to hundreds of millions in more populous states such as Massachusetts and Ohio.

Colorado fraud victims can report cases to the department and to Weiser’s office at stopfraudcolorado.gov.

The labor department’s efforts to identify hundreds of thousands of benefit accounts as potentially fraudulent has affected legitimate unemployed applicants as well. The department is using automated software to detect suspect claims.

The U.S. Department of Labor warned states in September about “criminal enterprises and other bad actors deploying advanced technologies, stolen or synthetic identities, and other sophisticated tactics,” according to a memo obtained by CPR News through a public records request.

Fraud networks based outside Colorado will be referred to federal prosecutors through the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The U.S. Justice Department is investigating unemployment fraud by transnational and domestic criminal organizations, according to Joshua Stueve, a spokesman for the department’s criminal division.

States hardest hit are those, like Colorado, participating in the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program adopted by Congress last year. The program helps unemployed freelancers and gig workers who normally don’t qualify for unemployment insurance.

Ohio
Different police approach favored for nonviolent 911 calls
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Social service and mental health professionals could respond to many non-violent 911 calls in Ohio’s capital and largest city that are now handled by police, according to a survey conducted as part of an ongoing review of policing.

More than half of respondents said that wellness checks and missing person reports are among calls that both police and trained crisis professionals could handle together, The Columbus Dispatch reported. Nearly two-thirds of respondents felt that mental health crises and suicide threats not involving reports of weapons don’t require any police response, according to the survey conducted by the Saunders PR Group.

The firm’s $30,000 contract included 12 focus groups, six town halls and a survey of about 4,000 people.

“There’s not a message of anti-policing,” firm founder Gayle Saunders told council Tuesday. “What we heard from the community is there’s an opportunity to actually bring some relief to the officers and what they have to do in the community.”

City leaders have pushed for changes to the police department for years but intensified efforts after the December killing of Andre Hill, who was Black, by a now-fired white officer.

Last month, city council agreed to fund the next class of police recruits following a debate over the future of law enforcement that would have put the class on hold.

Massachusetts
Lawsuit: State police leader broke rules to advance allies
BOSTON (AP) — The commander of the Massachusetts State Police who was supposed to reform the department after a series of scandals instead broke rules to promote his allies, while at the same time disenfranchising women, troopers of color, and older troopers, according to a lawsuit filed by three veteran supervisors.

The suit alleges that Col. Christopher Mason’s former driver and chief of staff, who had the best score on a promotion exam, and two other top-scoring troopers coauthored an exam study guide that was “suspiciously predictive” of questions, The Boston Globe reported Wednesday.

The guide is “strong evidence that test takers had access in advance to specific testing questions and answers” and that Mason and the command staff “turned a blind eye” to potential cheating, the suit says.

Following the exam, Mason rushed a promotion process to advance those closest to him — most notably his former driver — before a new state law took hold and changed the process, according to the suit.

Mason declined to be interviewed, but department spokesperson David Procopio denied the suit’s claims. The recent “promotional examination was prepared, announced, administered, and graded fairly, properly, and consistently, and in the same manner as past tests. Accusations of cheating are baseless and we reject them categorically,” he said.

Nevertheless, the agency’s internal affairs unit is reviewing the exam process in the interest of transparency, he said.

Gov. Charlie Baker, who appointed Mason in 2019, declined to comment through a spokesperson.

Among the plaintiffs are a 57-year-old woman and a 61-year-old man who identifies as Black and Hispanic.

The department has had several scandals in recent years that have eroded public trust, including widespread overtime abuse that resulted in criminal charges against several active and retired troopers.