Bloomington woman gets 7½ years for stealing $4.7M in COVID funds for 'lavish lifestyle'

A Twin Cities area woman with a long criminal history of fraud has received a 7½-year prison term for stealing $4.7 million in COVID-19 relief money from government agencies.

Tequisha L. Solomon, 40, of Bloomington, was sentenced Tuesday in U.S. District Court in St. Paul after pleading guilty to wire fraud for submitting phony claims for unemployment to various states.

Solomon's sentence includes an order to pay back all the money she stole. Roughly $4.6 million of it is owed to California's Employment Development Department (EDD) and much smaller amounts to similar agencies in Minnesota and Illinois.

Prosecutors said in a court filing ahead of sentencing that her ill-gotten wealth allowed her to enjoy "a lavish lifestyle funded by fraudulent proceeds, such as Ms. Solomon's acquisition of [a] Jaguar sedan vehicle."

As part of her sentence, Solomon not only has to forfeit the luxury car to the federal government but any other property or possessions she acquired with money from her scheme.

"The fact that Ms. Solomon's criminality exploited a national crisis renders it all the more aggravating," the prosecution filing continued.

In April, codefendant Takara Hughes, 37, of Maplewood, was sentenced to 1½ years in prison for stealing $1.25 million in pandemic relief money from government agencies in much the same way that Solomon did.

According to Solomon's plea agreement:

While residing in Minnesota and Nevada, Solomon falsely claimed to California's EDD that she worked and lived in Los Angeles. As a result, EDD paid her at least $37,000 in periodic unemployment insurance payments in 2020 and 2021.

In October 2020, Solomon also fraudulently claimed unemployment insurance benefits from the Illinois Department of Employment Security while living in Minnesota. In March 2021, she applied for unemployment insurance from Minnesota's Department of Employment and Economic Development while concealing the payments from her California and Illinois claims.

Also, Solomon more than 200 times assisted others — including prison inmates — to obtain pandemic-related funds in exchange for a fee, often as much as $2,000.

In total, Solomon fraudulently applied for $7.15 million in pandemic-related funds and a federal small business loan that yielded $4.7 million in return.

Stealing the money of others is nothing new for Solomon, according to the prosecution, and the habit has her in still more pending legal trouble.

"Ms. Solomon has amassed a substantial criminal history dating all the way back to her first felony conviction in 2006 at age 22," the U.S. Attorney's Office filing noted. "She has been convicted of theft by swindle, issuance of dishonored checks, theft by check, issuance of worthless check, receiving stolen property, theft of rental motor vehicle, theft-movable property, fleeing a peace officer, check forgeries, and second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon."

Solomon is accused by Wells Fargo of passing bad checks in June that resulted in at least $7,600 in losses to the bank.

The prosecution did nod in its presentence filing to numerous hardships in Solomon's life including emotional and physical abuse from family while growing up and the fatal shooting of her 17-year-old son in December 2020 in north Minneapolis.

"However, it is also the case that many others endure similar trauma and challenges in their own lives, but they do not resort to serious crime like Ms. Solomon did here," the filing read.