Being accused of a crime is scary. Being accused of a crime that you didn’t commit is terrifying. But that’s exactly what happened to Jonna Ferguson. After the Corinthian Colleges closed down the Everest Institute, she was out of a job and had to rely on unemployment from the state of Michigan. But just a few months later, she found a new job, notified the state, and her unemployment benefits stopped coming. End of story, right? Wrong.
Months later, Ferguson got a letter in the mail saying that she had defrauded the state of Michigan, and that she owed $20,000 in fines for accepting money that she wasn’t entitled to. Ferguson was horrified. And who wouldn’t be? She hadn’t done anything wrong, so how could this have happened?
Computer program to blame for fraud accusation?
As it turns out, the fault lay with a computer program – the Michigan Integrated Data Automated System (MiDAS), which had flagged Ferguson’s account as possibly fraudulent. From there, it sent messages to the online account assigned to her by the Michigan’s unemployment system in Lansing. But like most people in her position, because she was no longer receiving unemployment, she didn’t check the account. Without any contact via email or phone, she had no idea that the unemployment agency was trying to contact her.
MiDAS interpreted her lack of responses as intentional efforts to defraud Michigan’s unemployment system and then mailed her a letter notifying her that she owed thousands of dollars. What makes this worse, however, is that Ferguson isn’t the only victim of the system. According to information provided by the Office of the Auditor General, MiDAS has claimed that a total of 60,324 people receiving unemployment benefits have intentionally defrauded the government.
There are now thousands of people suing the state of Michigan, claiming to have been misrepresented and falsely accused of fraud by MiDAS. People have had their wages or tax refunds garnished based on these false theft allegations and they are very angry. The result is that now MiDAS’s fraud detecting ‘auto-adjudication’ feature has been shut off, leaving humans, and not a computer, to handle this aspect of the agency’s work.
As experienced criminal defense attorneys, we understand how terrifying, and utterly unfair a false accusation can be. The damaging effects of false allegations can affect your life in so many ways, ruining relationships, costing you your job, your credit and even negatively impacting your standing in your community. If you have been falsely accused of a crime in Michigan contact us immediately 1 866-766-5245. We have attorneys on call 24/7 for immediate consultation during a crisis.