5 CHARGED IN CHILD-CARE SCAM WELFARE FRAUD NETS $540,000, OFFICIALS SAY.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer

PALMDALE - Five Antelope Valley residents have been charged in two welfare-fraud schemes that prosecutors say together defrauded government agencies over 4 1/2 years of more than $540,000.

The schemes involved welfare recipients making up employers or exaggerating employment hours to qualify for government-paid baby-sitting for their children, then splitting the child-care payments with friends or relatives who claimed to be taking care of the children, prosecutors said.

``This whole scheme has spread throughout Los Angeles and throughout the state,'' said Jim Baker, assistant head deputy in the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office's Welfare Fraud Division. ``There's no oversight.''

The two Antelope Valley cases were among six involving nearly $1.2 million in various forms of alleged welfare fraud in which authorities made arrests in a sweep early Thursday around Los Angeles County.

A total of 16 people were charged in the six cases; 10 were arrested Thursday. The others already were in jail on other charges, made arrangements to surrender later, or were being sought, officials said.

California welfare recipients who have gotten jobs or are looking for work qualify under welfare reforms of the 1990s for government-paid child care that usually amounts to $500 to $1,000 a month per child, Baker said. Statewide, at least $2 billion a year goes for welfare recipients' child care, he said.

But a state Department of Education investigation that checked child-care providers randomly could verify that only 36 percent of children were being taken care of by the providers being paid to care for them, Baker said.

Baker said he believes many welfare recipients have concluded: ``Why should I work for $1,000 a month when my kids are worth $5,000? I can just pretend to work and split the child-care money with the provider.''

Charged in one of the Antelope Valley cases were Kathy Goldenreed, 28, of Lancaster; her mother, Bessie Golden-Jones, 51, of Lancaster; Goldenreed's brother, Jovaun Golden, 29, who was already in jail on suspicion of armed robbery and other charges; and friends Walter Goode Jr., 48, of Lancaster and Denetrice Spencer, 36, of Long Beach.

Charged in the second Antelope Valley case were Annttoniette Spriggs, 30, of Palmdale and friends Latoya Wilbert, 22, of Palmdale and Alfonso Perry, 59.

Prosecutors accused Goldenreed of making up a business named Primary Care Nursing and claiming to be employed by it to qualify for child-care payments, which went to friend Goode, Baker said.

Goldenreed also claimed other employment at times, including caring for her disabled sister or half-sister, even after she moved to Las Vegas for a year, and received California child-care assistance herself while in Nevada, Baker said.

Her brother was paid by the government as Spencer's child-care provider, Baker said.

Goldenreed's mother was charged in connection with the payments for the disabled sister, Baker said.

Among Goldenreed and her four friends and relatives, various welfare programs were defrauded more than $345,000 between 2001 and last summer, prosecutors said.

In the second case, Spriggs, Wilbert and Perry are accused of costing several welfare programs nearly $197,000 between 2001 and 2005.

Child-care payments alone amounted to $155,000 from two separate Los Angeles-area agencies that didn't realize the other was paying for Spriggs' child care, Baker said. The payments first went to a Montessori school, but then to Wilbert and Perry, who prosecutors allege split the payments with Spriggs.

Spriggs bought a house in Palmdale in 2004 while receiving welfare aid, Baker said.

``Child care pays big money,'' Baker said.

Charles F. Bostwick, [phone]

chuck.bostwick(at)dailynews.com