{"id":172071,"date":"2026-04-21T18:46:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T18:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/172071\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T18:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T18:46:10","slug":"erie-woman-charged-in-500k-pandemic-unemployment-fraud-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/172071\/","title":{"rendered":"Erie Woman Charged in $500K Pandemic Unemployment Fraud | News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAQAAAAe\/WZNAAAAEElEQVR42mM8U88ABowYDABAxQPltt5zqAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==\" alt=\"Money 2.jpg\" class=\"img-responsive lazyload full default\" width=\"1712\" height=\"1211\" data- data-\/><\/p>\n<p>A former Pennsylvania Labor Department employee is accused of taking bribes to approve fraudulent unemployment claims.<\/p>\n<p>Federal prosecutors say Elizabeth Goss, 43, of Erie allegedly accepted payments between 2020 and 2023 in exchange for fast-tracking more than $500,000 in pandemic-related unemployment benefits for claimants who were not eligible.<\/p>\n<p>Investigators say the scheme misused public funds that were intended to help people in need during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>Goss now faces multiple federal charges, including wire fraud and theft of government property. Each count carries a potential prison sentence of up to 20 years.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities say the case highlights their ongoing commitment to cracking down on fraud and holding those responsible accountable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former Pennsylvania Labor Department employee is accused of taking bribes to approve fraudulent unemployment claims. Federal prosecutors&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[7619,136,138,137,77207,75826,77206,23586],"class_list":{"0":"post-172071","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-erie","8":"tag-covid-19","9":"tag-erie","10":"tag-erie-headlines","11":"tag-erie-news","12":"tag-pandemic-benefits","13":"tag-theft-of-government-property","14":"tag-unemployment-fraud","15":"tag-wire-fraud"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}