Agents with Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill’s Office have arrested a Michigan woman for defrauding Louisiana’s pandemic unemployment program of over $66,000.

Local officials in Jackson County, Michigan took Antonya Moore, 26, of Michigan, into custody on January 12.

Moore was extradited and booked into the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison.

Louisiana Bureau of Investigation (LBI) agents learned Moore allegedly submitted multiple fraudulent online claims for COVID-19 unemployment insurance benefits.

“Government benefits like COVID assistance are intended to help our neighbors most in need. Obtaining these illegally is a crime that not only hurts taxpayers, but also the people they are intended to support,” said Attorney General Liz Murrill. 

Louisiana Bureau of Investigations agents have received over 100 complaints for COVID pandemic fraud cases. So far, the office has made over 25 arrests, and identified over $3 million in losses in those cases. 

This is an ongoing investigation.

On Tuesday, U.S. district court Judge James Cain blocked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Justice from imposing disparate impact regulations against the State of Louisiana.

“It is abundantly clear, that Defendants’ actions iterated herein have created great cause for concern, not only for the State of Louisiana, but also for our sister states who have also found themselves at the whim of the EPA and its overreaching mandates,” said Judge Cain. “The State has met its burden as to irreparable harm.”

“To be sure, if a decision maker has to consider race, to decide, it has indeed participated in racism,” the Judge continued. “Pollution does not discriminate.”

“The EPA could not explain any legal basis for its attempts to force Louisiana to violate the federal constitution,” said Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill. “When the EPA refused to explain its reasoning for threatening millions in federal funding in Louisiana and other states, we sued to require EPA explain itself to a federal judge. That judge agreed the EPA is wrong.”

The case is captioned State of Louisiana v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency et al, No. 2:23-cv-692, and is pending in the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.