BALTIMORE (WBFF) — A Silver Spring woman was sentenced to more than three years in federal prison for her role in a scheme that fraudulently obtained hundreds of thousands of dollars in COVID-19 unemployment and business relief funds, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland announced Monday.
50-year-old Elizabeth Maria Ceballos was sentenced to 40 months in prison, followed by two years of supervised release, after she pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
The judge also ordered Ceballos to pay $638,889 in restitution.
The scheme took place between at least May 2020 and September 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Prosecutors said Ceballos accepted money in exchange for creating false tax documents that were used to support fraudulent unemployment insurance claims submitted to the Maryland Department of Labor.
Authorities said the fraud involved unemployment benefits made available through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which expanded unemployment assistance during the pandemic.
As part of her guilty plea, Ceballos also admitted helping co-conspirator Vanessa Valdez, 42, of Burtonsville, commit fraud involving Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) funds, which were created under the CARES Act to help businesses affected by the pandemic.
Federal prosecutors said Valdez pleaded guilty in December 2025 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
She is awaiting sentencing.
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