Moses Lake Man Charged with Defrauding Employment Security Department from the Inside

A Moses Lake man is facing a 20-count indictment for a fraud scheme he ran while working for the Washington State Employment Security Department (ESD).

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, 47-year-old Reyes De La Cruz III is accused of fraudulently distributing at least $360-thousand in pandemic-related benefits, enriching himself with at least $130-thousand of that amount.

De La Cruz previously worked for the ESD from 1996 to 2003. In April of 2020, he was hired by the ESD as an intake agent to help deal with the large backlog of pandemic-related claims at the time.

The indictment alleges De La Cruz ran multiple schemes. In one, he would create claims using other people's personal information. He would then have the benefits from those claims paid to debit cards that were mailed to De La Cruz in Moses Lake. Even after being fired by the ESD in October of 2020, he was still attempting to run the debit card scheme. De La Cruz went so far as to impersonate claimants. It's thought he stole more than $110,000 in this way.

Secondly, De La Cruz accepted bribes and kickbacks from friends, family and acquaintances for making false entries in the claims database that would sometimes amount to tens of thousands of dollars In total, De La Cruz received at least $21,000 this way.

Del La Cruz will make his initial appearance on the indictment Monday in Spokane. He faces six counts of wire fraud, nine counts of bribery, one count of extortion and four counts of aggravated identity theft. If convicted, De La Cruz could face decades in prison.