Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman has indicted eight people for allegedly stealing over $177,000 in public aid.. the group includes state and transit employees who reportedly hid assets and income to qualify for benefits.
How State and LA Metro Workers Bypassed Income Limits
The indictment targets individuals who allegedly maintained high-paying government roles while claiming they were impoverished. Nadya Daniels, a resident of Inglewood, is accused of pocketing more than $21,000 in CalFresh benefits between April 2023 and April 2025. According to court documents, Daniels was employed by the state's Employment Development Department, earning a monthly gross income between $4,500 and nearly $6,000 while claiming to be a part-time retail worker.
Similarly,Nyeisha Nicole Taylor of Los Angeles allegedly collected over $17,600 in CalFresh and CalWORKs benefits from November 2021 to August 2022. As reported in the source, Taylor was hired by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority in January 2022, earning roughly $1,850 per month while continuing to receive aid intended for low-income residents.
Million-Dollar Accounts and Menifee Real Estate
Beyond employment fraud, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office identified defendants who hid significant wealth. Ogi Buyan of Santa Monica is accused of collecting more than $47,000 in aid despite holding investment accounts with combined balances ranging from $60,000 to over $1 million. These figures far exceed the asset limits required for public assistance eligibility.
Real estate holdings also played a role in the alleged deception. Rana Soliman of San Dimas allegedly collected $23,000 in benefits while concealing a home in Menifee valued at more than $611,000. Soliman is further accused of hiding rental income from that property totaling up to $3,600 per month. In Glendale, Jafar and Adrineh Abdi allegedly took $29,000 in food assistance; Adrineh Abdi reportedly earned over $165,000 during the period, and the couple collected $4,825 in monthly rent from other properties.
The $4.8 Million Crackdown by Nathan Hochman
This specific case is part of a much larger systemic effort by Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman to recover taxpayer funds. The DA's office has filed more than 340 cases this year involving perjury and public benefits fraud, with total claimed losses reaching $4.8 million. This surge in prosecutions reflects a broader trend of tightening oversight on social safety nets to ensure resources reach eligible families.
The legal stakes for the eight defendants are high , as each faces a felony count of aid by misrepresentation over $950 and multiple counts of perjury. While District Attorney Nathan Hochman noted that fraud represents a small fraction of total benefits distributed, he emphasized that such theft undermines the integrity of the entire system.
The Verification Gap for the $115,000 Bakery
One of the most glaring questions raised by the indictment involves the failure of agency verification systems to detect business ownership. Hasmik Hovhannisyan and Hayk Grigoryan of Los Angeles allegedly collected over $38,000 in benefits while failing to disclose a bakery they owned that generated more than $115,000. It remains unclear how a business of this size avoided detection during the recertification process.
Furthermore, the current report focuses exclusively on the prosecution's claims, as all eight defendants have pleaded not guilty. It is yet to be seen if the defense will challenge the "complex financial trails" cited by the DA's office, which include property deeds and investment records, or if the agencies themselves will admit to lapses in their income-verification protocols.
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