Former Department of Labor Employee Indicted for Fraudulently Obtaining Over $40,000 in Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Benefits

BOSTON – A former employee of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) was charged today with fraudulently obtaining over $40,000 in pandemic unemployment assistance (PUA) benefits.

Mo Yuong Kang, 50, formerly of Woburn and Dracut, Mass., was indicted today and charged with wire fraud. He will appear in federal court in Boston at a later date.

According to the indictment, Kang worked as an Industrial Hygienist with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, an agency of the DOL, from June 2016 until July 2023. In 2020 and 2021, Kang was a full-time employee of the DOL and earned $86,667 and $90,738, respectively.

According to the indictment, in April 2020, Kang allegedly submitted a false PUA application to the Division of Unemployment Assistance (DUA). It is alleged that, in the application, Kang claimed under the penalty of perjury that he was “self-employed, an independent contractor, or a gig worker and COVID-19 has severely limited [his] ability to perform [his] normal work,” and that he had not earned more than $89 a week since March 8, 2020. The DUA approved Kang’s claim, and through September 2021 Kang subsequently submitted weekly certifications to the DUA allegedly claiming that he did not work and did not receive any income during those weekly periods. Based upon his application registration and those weekly certifications, Kang allegedly received $45,868 in PUA benefits he was not entitled to.

The charge of wire fraud provides for a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and statutes which govern the determination of a sentence in a criminal case.

United States Attorney Leah B. Foley; Jonathan Mellone, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Inspector General, Office of Investigations, Labor Racketeering and Fraud, Northeast Region; and Christopher Silvestro, Special Agent in Charge of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, Northeast Field Office made the announcement today. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristina E. Barclay of the Public Corruption and Special Prosecutions Unit is prosecuting the case.

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act was enacted in March 2020 and designed to provide emergency financial assistance to the millions of Americans who were suffering the economic effects caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The CARES Act created a new temporary federal unemployment insurance program called pandemic unemployment assistance (PUA), which provided unemployment benefits for individuals who were not eligible for standard unemployment benefits. To receive PUA benefits, Massachusetts claimants were required to certify in an initial registration and in weekly certifications whether or not they worked or received any income during the relevant time period. The PUA program was administered in Massachusetts by the Division of Unemployment Assistance (DUA).

The details contained in the charging document are allegations. The defendant is presumed to be innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in the court of law.