A Montgomery County woman has been sentenced to 40 months in federal prison for her role in a conspiracy that fraudulently obtained unemployment insurance benefits and other COVID-19 relief funds.
U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Maddox sentenced 50-year-old Elizabeth Maria Ceballos of Silver Spring 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 court also ordered her to pay $638,889 in restitution.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland, Ceballos and co-conspirator Vanessa Valdez, 42, of Burtonsville, participated in the scheme from at least May 2020 through September 2021. 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.
As part of her guilty plea, Ceballos also admitted assisting Valdez in obtaining fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) funds, both of which were established under the federal CARES Act to help businesses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Valdez pleaded guilty in December 2025 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. She has not yet been sentenced.
