Jasmine Murphy
Introduction
Jasmine Murphy is a former corrections officer with the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department in Massachusetts who was sentenced in federal court in Boston on October 21, 2026, for fraudulently collecting pandemic unemployment assistance and a small-business loan while employed. Murphy, 39, of Cambridge, pleaded guilty in April 2026 to seven counts of wire fraud and one count of making a false statement to a financial institution. United States District Court Judge Richard G. Stearns sentenced her to time served — a single day in prison, which she had already served — plus two years of supervised release, and ordered her to pay $19,868 in restitution to the Massachusetts Department of Unemployment Assistance and $17,708 to the Small Business Administration, a combined $37,576 .
Background Information
Murphy worked as a corrections officer with the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department from January 2022 until December 2024 — a job she held while, according to prosecutors, she was simultaneously collecting pandemic-era benefits obtained by lying about her employment. Before joining the sheriff’s department, she worked for a trucking and workforce services company, and it was during that earlier employment that the fraudulent applications were filed. Her case arrived alongside that of Christnel Orisca, a fellow Suffolk County corrections officer charged in the same December 2024 indictment; Orisca, who worked at the department from 2021 to 2024, was separately charged with five counts of wire fraud and one count of making a false statement to obtain federal benefits, with prosecutors alleging he fraudulently obtained approximately $54,700 .
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Convicted by plea. Murphy pleaded guilty in April 2026 to seven counts of wire fraud and one count of making a false statement to a financial institution, and her sentencing followed on October 21, 2026. The scheme facts below are drawn from her own admissions and the sentencing announcement of the U.S. Attorney’s Office; no counts went to trial.
According to federal prosecutors, Murphy applied for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance while working for the workforce services company, making fraudulent representations about her employment status on the application. Once approved, she falsely claimed on a weekly basis that she had not worked and had received no income during the prior week — while, prosecutors noted, she was in fact employed the entire time. In her Paycheck Protection Program loan application, she submitted false statements to SBA-approved lenders about the income and payroll of her purported small business, and later made false representations on the forms requesting that the PPP loan be forgiven. In total she collected approximately $37,576 in unemployment benefits and small-business loan funds she was not entitled to .
The Boston Globe’s account of the sentencing noted the awkward timeline at the heart of the case: Murphy was collecting benefits meant for people who had lost work with a pandemic raging, while holding a uniformed corrections job in the same county whose residents funded those benefits. She was charged in December 2024 along with Orisca, pleaded guilty in April 2026, and was sentenced on Wednesday, October 21, 2026 .
Public Reaction and Consequences
The sentence was announced by United States Attorney Leah B. Foley together with the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security and the Labor Department OIG’s special agent in charge — a multi-agency sign-off reflecting how pandemic-benefits cases now move through federal enforcement. Assistant U.S. Attorney Dustin Chao, chief of the Public Corruption & Special Prosecutions Unit, prosecuted the case, a unit assignment that itself signals how prosecutors view fraud committed by public employees .
The Globe reported that Murphy was ordered to pay back the full $37,576. The practical consequences of her conviction extend past restitution: a federal felony record on ten counts, two years of court supervision, and the end of her corrections career, which had already ended in December 2024 when the charges landed .
Current Status
As of the October 22, 2026 sentencing announcement, Murphy had been sentenced to one day of imprisonment (credited as served), two years of supervised release, and a combined $37,576 in restitution owed to the state unemployment agency and the SBA. Her plea and sentence resolve her portion of the December 2024 indictment. Orisca’s case remained the outstanding thread in the public record: the same charging release covered both officers, and no sentencing for him had been announced in the sources available as of this writing .
Impact on Their Career/Life
Murphy’s corrections career is over and her record now carries ten federal fraud counts by plea. The case’s arithmetic is the part that tends to endure in public memory: roughly $37,576 taken, a career in law enforcement surrendered, a federal conviction, and a supervised-release term stretching into 2028. For the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department, the case added to the reputational cost of the December 2024 indictment, which caught two of its own officers in a single fraud sweep. And for the wider universe of pandemic-benefits fraud prosecutions, Murphy’s sentencing is another entry in the pattern prosecutors have emphasized: people who held jobs while collecting jobless benefits, prosecuted even when the amounts were modest .