NORFOLK, Va. — A Hampton man was sentenced Friday to 27 months in prison for a fraud scheme to receive unemployment that was made available because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
The DOJ said according to court documents, Demichael J Peeples, 27, submitted multiple false unemployment claims with the Commonwealth of Virginia and the State of California.
In the claims, which were for benefits for himself and others, The DOJ said Peeples falsely represented, among other things, the applicants’ work history and that they lost their employment as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The DOJ said Peeples recruited people on social media to provide their personal information so that he could submit claims for them. The DOJ said that in many cases, the money was delivered to Peeples' home, and he kept it.
Peeples is a documented member of the 10K street gang on the Peninsula, the DOJ said.
While on pretrial release, the DOJ says Peeples used illegal drugs, failed to seek employment, did not report contact with law enforcement to his supervising probation officer and otherwise failed to comply with his conditions of release.
Peeples was evicted from a hotel room in March where police found a Glock that had a preliminary match to a shooting that had happened earlier in the day he was evicted on, the DOJ said.
In May, police responded to an incident at Peeples' home where unknown people shot 19 rounds at him.
