Another member of the Georgia legislature has been indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Karen Bennett, who served as state representative for DeKalb and Gwinnett counties, is charged with making false statements to obtain COVID-19 funds. Bennett officially submitted her resignation to the Governor on December 30, 2025, effective January 1, 2026, just four days before she was formally indicted.
According to the Information Indictment filed in open court on Monday, Bennett applied for unemployment benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic on April 30, 2020 and was determined to be ‘ineligible to receive UI benefits.’ As a result, her application was denied. Roughly a month later, on May 7, 2020, Bennett applied for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program (PUA) benefits and disclosed that she had two employers: the Georgia General Assembly and Metro Therapy Providers Inc, which Bennett owned.
Bennett attested that her work included making in-home physical therapy visits and that it was her primary occupation and primary means of livelihood. Further, she stated that she had not worked since April 10, 2020. She also certified in her application that:
- The pandemic prevented her from performing any service in connection with that employment
- She was “unable to reach my place of employment because of a quarantine imposed as a direct result of the COVID-19 public health emergency.”
- She was unable to return to work because “[t]he policies of the program require strict Shelter in Place guidelines and person to person contact is not accepted.”
But court documents state Bennett was not prevented from performing her work for Metro Therapy and that her position was an administrative one, which allowed her to work from home. Reportedly, Bennett worked from a home office even before the pandemic.
“Once approved for PUA benefits, Bennett periodically submitted online certifications for every week for which she requested benefits. In each of those certifications, while she stated that she was receiving $300 per week from the General Assembly, she disclosed no other income. Specifically, she stated that she had not earned any self-employment or other wages from Metro Therapy or other employers for the week…She submitted such certifications for weeks in March through August 2020.”
The Information Indictment also claims that Bennett “failed to disclose and concealed that she had separate employment through a church and was receiving a paycheck from the church for $905 every week the entire time she was claiming PUA benefits. As a result of the false application and certifications, Bennett collected a total of $13,940 of PUA benefits and federal supplements to which she was not entitled.”
As a result, Bennett is charged with one count of making false statements by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia.
Bennett is the second member of the Georgia delegation to be indicted in recent weeks. State Representative Sharon Henderson was also indicted for pandemic-related unemployment fraud. She has not stepped down from her position.
