Three former contract employees who worked inside Ohio's pandemic unemployment call centers improperly released more than $3.2 million in benefits by manipulating claims for identity verification and eligibility, according to an Ohio Inspector General investigation report released on August 27. The findings center on Ferris Johnson and Tosha Williams, both TEKsystems subcontractors, along with a third former contract employee, Kenya Carter, who together caused the improper release of roughly $3,280,690 tied to 248 fraudulent claims.
According to the report, as covered by FOX 8 Cleveland WJW, Johnson worked a help-desk role at the Deloitte Call Center handling Pandemic Unemployment Assistance claims from March 3, 2021, until July 14, 2021. Investigators say Johnson approved previously denied claims for ineligible individuals, with 47 claims tied solely to him totaling nearly $993,000. The Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program was created during the COVID-19 pandemic to provide benefits to people who did not qualify for traditional unemployment compensation, and the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services distributed about $7.6 billion in such benefits during fiscal year 2021 alone.
Williams served in a similar help-desk capacity from December 29, 2020, until she was terminated on April 3, 2021, for unsatisfactory performance. Investigators found she altered eligibility-related issues on claims, accessed claims belonging to relatives and friends, and even manipulated her own unemployment claim without obtaining the required supporting documentation. Claims linked solely to Williams numbered 169 and totaled about $1.48 million.
Cash App Records Point to a Kickback Scheme
Authorities allege Williams accepted electronic payments in exchange for approving improper claims referred to her by two additional alleged co-conspirators, Toya Brown and Malaysia Brown. A financial analysis of Cash App records, detailed in the Ohio Inspector General's findings, showed Brown and Brown referred improper claims to Williams in exchange for electronic payments, resulting in $197,626 improperly released across four claims. Investigators reviewed Cash App records and other financial information to trace the referral-and-payment pattern that tied the co-conspirators together.
The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services first referred allegations involving Johnson to the Inspector General's office in August 2024, per investigators, before the probe later expanded to include Williams. The investigation was carried out by the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Investigative Group, a task force that included the Ohio Inspector General's office, the Ohio State Highway Patrol, the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Inspector General, and ODJFS itself.
Findings Referred for Possible Prosecution
The Inspector General's office has referred its findings to both the Franklin County Prosecutor's Office and the Ohio Auditor of State, where referred findings could lead to review and possible action, per the Inspector General's office. It remains unclear whether Franklin County prosecutors will file formal criminal charges against Johnson and Williams, or whether ODJFS and its staffing contractors will pursue financial liability to recover the unrecaptured funds.
This case is not an isolated one. Ohio has now identified approximately $1.8 billion in total unemployment overpayments statewide since the start of the pandemic through September 30, 2025, but has only recovered roughly $108 million of that amount, a gap that traces back in part to control weaknesses first flagged in an October 2021 audit by the Ohio Auditor of State, which found that $475 million had gone to fraudulent accounts and $3.3 billion had been overpaid, representing 26% of all unemployment funds disbursed in fiscal year 2021.
A Familiar Pattern Among Contract Staff
Ohio has brought a string of similar cases against contract workers who exploited call-center access during the pandemic surge. In April, former Randstad contractor Andrew Kerobo and accomplice Deonta Belser were sentenced in Franklin County Common Pleas Court to 7 to 10.5 years in prison after Kerobo used active login credentials for 90 days following his September 2020 termination to alter 448 claims and release $6.86 million in fraudulent benefits, as Hoodline reported at the time. Just weeks before this latest report, federal prosecutors indicted Cleveland sisters Joirean and Adriane Creel on conspiracy to commit wire fraud charges for allegedly accepting cash kickbacks to override fraud flags and approve $1.9 million in fraudulent claims while working for an ODJFS contractor.
A July report from the same Inspector General's office also found that former Randstad employee and Harte Hanks subcontractor Princess Bush improperly backdated claims to release $38,832 after her September 2020 termination, because her database credentials were not deactivated until December 2020. And in March 2025, investigators found that former customer service representative Renita Carr, who moved from contractor Insight Global LLC to a direct ODJFS role, improperly overrode fraud flags on 28 claims to release $565,949 in benefits.
Congress extended the statute of limitations for prosecuting COVID-19 pandemic relief fraud from five years to ten years under federal legislation enacted in August 2022, a change that allows state and federal prosecutors to keep pursuing 2020–2021 fraud cases through 2030 and beyond. That extended window helps explain why cases tied to help-desk credentials issued years ago continue to surface as investigators comb through database audit trails and financial records.
