Los Angeles County prosecutors have charged eight people in six separate felony cases, alleging they concealed income or assets and collected CalWORKs and CalFresh benefits. Two of the accused worked for public agencies. The combined total prosecutors cite is $177,233.77.
District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced the filings Thursday. That figure comes from his office's announcement, as reported by 2UrbanGirls. An LA Metro employee and a California Employment Development Department employee are among those charged, KTLA reported.
A Metro Hire and an EDD Paycheck
Nyeisha Nicole Taylor, 41, of Los Angeles, is accused of obtaining $17,634 from Nov. 6, 2021, through Aug. 22, 2022. The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority hired her in January 2022, partway through that window. Prosecutors say she earned about $1,850 a month there and certified that she was not employed.
Nadya Daniels, 41, of Inglewood, is accused of receiving $21,076 in CalFresh benefits from April 5, 2023, through April 18, 2025, while working for the Employment Development Department. Her gross monthly income ranged from about $4,500 to $5,980, depending on the month. She certified more than once that she had no income, or that she worked part time in a retail store, NBC Los Angeles reported.
EDD is the state agency that administers unemployment insurance. Prosecutors allege Daniels was on that payroll while telling the county her work was either nonexistent or a part-time retail shift.
Rent the Applications Did Not List
Rana Soliman, 35, of San Dimas, is accused of receiving $23,255 in CalWORKs and CalFresh benefits from Oct. 5, 2022, through Aug. 31, 2025. She certified that she had no assets or income. Authorities valued a Menifee home she owned at about $611,100, and prosecutors say rent from that house ran $3,200 to $3,600 a month.
At the $3,200 low end, those rent payments would have passed the entire benefit total in a little more than seven months.
Jafar Abdi, 67, and Adrineh Abdi, 58, both of Glendale, are accused of obtaining $29,579 in CalFresh benefits between May 16, 2021, and June 29, 2023. They certified, prosecutors allege, that they had no employment or rental income beyond Jafar Abdi's temporary job at a body-care store.
Adrineh Abdi worked full time at a local college during that period and earned more than $165,000. The couple also allegedly collected $4,825 a month on a Glendale house they owned. The college earnings alone are more than five times the CalFresh total tied to their case.
Bakery Income and Investment Accounts
Hasmik Hovhannisyan, 40, and Hayk Grigoryan, 45, both of Los Angeles, are accused of receiving $38,630 in CalWORKs and CalFresh benefits from March 3, 2023, to Feb. 27, 2025. Prosecutors say they owned a Los Angeles bakery and received $115,055 in corporate income between 2022 and 2024. Grigoryan was employed by the bakery as well.
They repeatedly certified that they had no additional income, even while reporting his employee wages. The amount prosecutors say stayed off the forms is the corporate income, not the paycheck already disclosed. That $115,055 overlaps the years they were receiving aid, though the income period starts in 2022, before the benefit dates listed in their case.
Ogi Buyan, 50, of Santa Monica, is accused of obtaining $47,059.77 between Sept. 30, 2019, and Aug. 12, 2023, the largest individual total in the group. The aid included CalWORKs cash assistance, CalFresh, and housing help. Prosecutors say he held two investment accounts with a combined monthly balance ranging from $60,000 to more than $1 million.
That is a range across months, not one balance stuck above seven figures. In some months, prosecutors said, the accounts together held $60,000. In others, the total cleared $1 million.
A Small Fraction, and 340 Cases
CalWORKs and CalFresh are meant to help low-income families with food, housing, employment support, clothing, child care, medical care, and utility bills. Hochman said the benefits are a lifeline for struggling families, not cash for people who misstate what they have. Fraud, he said, is a small fraction of everything the programs distribute, and even one person abusing the system is too many.
These six cases are among more than 340 public-benefits fraud and perjury cases his office said it had filed in 2026, alleging $4.8 million in government losses, KTLA reported. The $177,233.77 is part of that tally, not a second pile on top of it.
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services investigated the six cases. Deputy District Attorney Ursula Aguiar of the Public Assistance Fraud Division is prosecuting them.
