COVID Fraudster Sentenced to 105 Months in Prison Following Raid

Los Angeles, CA – A San Bernardino County man has been sentenced today to 105 months in federal prison for using identity theft to bilk the government out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in COVID relief funds, the Justice Department announced.

Bobby Jackson Jr., 43, of Rialto, was sentenced by United States District Judge Dale S. Fischer, who also ordered him to pay $677,151.00 in restitution. Judge Fischer said that a high sentence was necessary because previous sentences as long as 70 months in prison for armed bank robbery had been insufficient to deter Jackson from returning to crime.

Jackson pleaded guilty in July 2024 to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud. He has been in federal custody since April 2022, when he was arrested for violating the terms of his supervised release by committing this fraud. Jackson also lied to his probation officer about where he lived so that inspections of his residence would not reveal any evidence of his COVID fraud.

According to court documents, from 2020 through 2022 Jackson and his conspirators applied for Paycheck Protection Program loans in the names of fictitious businesses, and for unemployment insurance using the names of others. He also used stolen identities to rent apartments, selling access to them to his confederates for a fee.

Law enforcement learned of Jackson’s scheme after the FBI searched U.S. Private Vaults, which rented safety deposit boxes anonymously, including to two of Jackson’s conspirators. Jackson unsuccessfully moved to suppress the evidence against him, arguing that the search of U.S. Private Vaults was illegal.

The United States Postal Inspection Service and the FBI investigated this case with assistance from the Small Business Administration, Office of the Inspector General and California Employment Development Department. The FBI, USPIS and the DEA investigated U.S. Private Vaults.

Assistant United States Attorney Andrew Brown of the Major Frauds Section prosecuted this case.