Adell Rastutis knew how to get unemployment benefits. Over a span of 13 years, according to the Denver grand jury, she received $426,000.
But in a 51-count felony indictment made public Monday, the grand jury said Rastutis wasn’t entitled to any of the money.
From 1994 until her arrest Friday, the 61-year-old woman obtained the benefits by registering fake businesses with the state and making minimal payments into the unemployment insurance fund, the indictment says. She then allegedly would tell officials that each business had failed and had laid off all its employees.
The indictment claims that Rastutis used her own name and seven false names to pull off the purported scam, posing as laid-off employees.
“It is the single largest fraud ever uncovered involving unemployment benefits,” said Bill Thoennes, spokesman for the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. “She knew what she was doing and got away with it for years.”
Thoennes said the usual range for unemployment fraud is $3,000 to $20,000.
Rastutis is being held at the Denver County Jail on $100,000 bond, said Lynn Kimbrough, spokeswoman for the Denver district attorney’s office.
Auditors and investigators for the state first suspected that something was amiss last September, Kimbrough said, but the scheme was so sophisticated that it took them months to get a handle on it.
It is so intricate, Kimbrough added, that the investigation is continuing. “It’s like peeling away an onion,” she said.
For example, the indictment said Rastutis reported to the state that Susan Longmore, one of her false identities, had been laid off by a host of employers. Using her own name, she falsely claimed that she was employed and then laid off by the same employers, the indictment said.
The grand jury said Rastutis used some of the fictitious identities to rent post office boxes in various locations in Aurora to receive unemployment benefits.
According to investigators, Rastutis used a computer to access various online claims and benefits systems.
Rastutis faces eight counts of theft, seven counts of criminal impersonation, 20 counts of forgery and 16 counts of computer crime.
Staff writer Howard Pankratz can be reached at 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
