He is charged with six counts of wire fraud, nine counts of bribery, one count of extortion by a public official and four counts of aggravated identity theft.

ESD also declined to share details about how or when the agency detected the alleged fraud.

“Even as ESD faced the challenges of processing the high volume of legitimate claims, he chose to take advantage of his position to worsen the unprecedented fraud on unemployment benefits,” Gorman said in a statement.

De La Cruz is the third suspect to be charged in Washington’s unemployment $650 million scam last year. But his case differs substantially from two earlier cases, which involved Nigerian citizens using stolen identities to file fraudulent unemployment claims, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Cindy Chang, who is leading the government’s prosecution.

ESD said, in total, approximately 120,000 fraudulent claims were filed in Washington with more than $600 million in payouts. More than half of that money was recovered by investigators tracking fraud rings in the U.S. and abroad

Lawsuits mushroom as workers test employers’ right to mandate COVID-19 vaccination:

Immunology experts have pushed back on the plaintiff’s characterization of Pfizer-BioNTech’s (PFE) and Moderna’s (MRNA) mRNA vaccines as “gene modification injections.”

The FDA’s characterization of the (COVID-19) injections as “investigational products.”

ALSO

More unvaccinated U.S. adolescents hospitalized; myocarditis may be rare vaccine side effect in teens.

OLYMPIA, Wash. – Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced on Sunday that the state will provide unemployment for the nearly 100,000 Washingtonians who will lose their federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) benefits following President Donald Trump’s refusal to sign a federal coronavirus relief package by the Saturday night deadline.

The $54 million bill, announced by Inslee, will provide a one-time Pandemic Relief Payment to 94,555 people in Washington who have been claiming PUA. The money will be distributed by the Employment Security Department later this week, the governor’s office says.

Statement of Intent
This Order shall be interpreted and implemented in a manner as to achieve the following paramount objectives:

Preserving human life;
Preserving the health and safety of cruise ship crew members, port personnel, and communities;
Preventing the further introduction, transmission, and spread of COVID-19 into and throughout the United States;
Preserving the public health and other critical resources of Federal, State, and local governments;
Preserving hospital, healthcare, and emergency response resources within the United States; and
Maintaining the safety of shipping and harbor conditions.