Nadya Daniels

Introduction

Nadya Daniels is a 41-year-old Inglewood woman and an employee of the State of California’s Employment Development Department who is among eight people charged in Los Angeles County with fraudulently obtaining more than $177,000 in public assistance benefits — a group of six felony cases announced Thursday, November 12, 2026, by District Attorney Nathan Hochman that drew outsized attention because two of the defendants worked for the government agencies whose tax dollars fund the aid. Daniels is accused of collecting $21,076 in CalFresh food benefits over two years while certifying under penalty of perjury that she had no income or only a part-time retail job — even as she drew a gross state salary of roughly $4,500 to $5,980 a month from the department that administers California’s unemployment and benefits programs. She has pleaded not guilty.

Background Information

Per the District Attorney’s release, Daniels was born September 1, 1985, lives in Inglewood, and worked for the EDD with gross monthly income ranging from approximately $4,500 to $5,980 depending on the month during the period of the alleged fraud. She is charged in case 26CJCF04971, filed August 7, 2026, with one felony count of aid by misrepresentation over $950 and five felony counts of perjury by false application for aid. The six cases were prosecuted by Deputy District Attorney Ursula Aguiar of the DA’s Public Assistance Fraud Division and investigated by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services, whose benefits — CalFresh food assistance and CalWORKs cash aid for low-income families — are the programs all eight defendants are accused of abusing.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Charged with felony public-assistance fraud and perjury; pleaded not guilty; unadjudicated. The charges are accusations in pending felony cases, not findings: every defendant entered a not-guilty plea, and nothing here is established in court. The amounts alleged come from the District Attorney’s own release, which casts each defendant’s conduct as certifications “under penalty of perjury” that concealed income, property, or assets while collecting aid meant for low-income Angelenos.

Daniels’s alleged scheme, per prosecutors, ran from April 5, 2023, to April 18, 2025: over those two years she repeatedly recertified her CalFresh eligibility while stating under penalty of perjury that she either had no income or earned money only from a part-time job at a retail store, concealing her EDD salary the entire time. The $21,076 she is accused of obtaining is the second-largest alleged take among the two public employees in the group — but the detail that defined the announcement’s coverage was her employer: the state agency that sits on the administrative side of the very benefit systems she is accused of gaming.

The other public employee charged alongside her is Nyeisha Nicole Taylor, 41, of Los Angeles, allegedly hired by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority — LA Metro — in January 2022 at about $1,850 a month, who is accused of collecting $17,634 in CalWORKs and CalFresh benefits between November 6, 2021, and August 22, 2022, while certifying that she was not employed even as she worked continuously for the county agency. The six remaining defendants, charged in cases filed between June 15 and August 11, 2026: Ogi Buyan, 50, of Santa Monica, accused of obtaining $47,059.77 in CalWORKs cash aid, CalFresh and housing assistance while holding two investment accounts with combined balances ranging from $60,000 to over $1 million; Rana Soliman, 35, of San Dimas, accused of $23,255 in benefits while concealing a Menifee home valued at approximately $611,100 and $3,200 to $3,600 a month in rental income from it; Glendale couple Jafar Abdi, 67, and Adrineh Abdi, 58, accused of $29,579 in CalFresh benefits while concealing Adrineh’s full-time college job that paid more than $165,000 and $4,825 in monthly rent on a roughly $979,000 home; and Los Angeles pair Hasmik Hovhannisyan, 40, and Hayk Grigoryan, 45, accused of more than $38,000 in benefits while failing to disclose a bakery they owned that received $115,055 in corporate income between 2022 and 2024.

Public Reaction and Consequences

Hochman framed the announcement around the betrayal the two public employees represent: “Public benefits are a lifeline for struggling families, not free cash for fraudsters,” he said. “While public assistance fraud is a small fraction of the total benefits distributed, even one person who takes advantage of the system is one too many.” His office used the release to tout the scale of its enforcement sweep — the Public Assistance Fraud Division has filed more than 340 cases alleging nearly $4.8 million in fraudulent payments this year — and the New York Post led its writeup with the irony of the state and transit workers “ripping off taxpayers” while “hiding their salaries, rental income and other assets from the government cutting their checks.” LA Mag and 2UrbanGirls both carried the announcement with the full defendant breakdown, and the DA’s office pushed the charges to its own followers on X the same day.

The Post’s framing — “So much for public service” — set the tone for the coverage: the story’s hook was not the totals, which are modest by fraud-case standards, but the defendants’ employers. Neither agency was accused of any role; the EDD and LA Metro enter the record only as the payers of the salaries the two women are alleged to have hidden.

Current Status

All eight defendants have pleaded not guilty, per the New York Post’s report of the announcement, and every case is unadjudicated. Daniels is charged in case 26CJCF04971 with one felony count of aid by misrepresentation over $950 and five felony counts of perjury by false application for aid; a preliminary hearing setting is scheduled for November 20, 2026, in Department 42 of the Foltz Criminal Justice Center — the same date as Taylor’s. No statement from Daniels or an attorney for her appears in any of the coverage, and neither the EDD nor LA Metro has announced any employment action against the two charged employees. She is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

Impact on Their Career/Life

For Daniels the charges land directly on the intersection of her livelihood and her alleged crime: a state employee accused of lying to the benefits system her own department helps administer, now facing felony counts that carry potential prison exposure if proven. The public-employee angle is what carried the story into statewide coverage, and it is the fact most likely to outlast the cases — whatever the courts decide, the record now pairs her name with an alleged $21,076 in improperly obtained food aid, certified “under penalty of perjury” in the DA’s telling, while she collected a state paycheck. Hochman’s office, for its part, has made these prosecutions a signature: the 340-plus cases filed this year are the division’s running total, and the announcement made clear more are expected.

Sources

Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, “Eight Charged With Fraudulently Obtaining $177K in CalFresh and CalWORKs Benefits Intended for Low-Income Angelenos,” November 12, 2026 — source
New York Post, “LA Metro and state workers among charged in $177K welfare fraud scheme,” November 12, 2026 — source
LA Mag, “8 Charged in $177K L.A. County Public Benefits Fraud Case,” November 12, 2026 — source
2UrbanGirls, “Eight Charged With Fraudulently Obtaining $177K in CalFresh and CalWORKs Benefits,” November 12, 2026 — source
@nypost on X, trigger post for the fraud charges, November 12, 2026 — source