In a brazen betrayal of public trust, Damaris Valerio—a 42-year-old cosmetologist and registered Conservative Party voter from Perth Amboy—has admitted to defrauding federal COVID-19 relief programs out of nearly $200,000 meant for struggling small businesses and unemployed workers.
Valerio, who operated the self-proclaimed “best hair salon in New Jersey,” La Vogue House of Beauty, exploited pandemic desperation to line her own pockets, according to federal prosecutors.
Between April 2020 and December 2021, Valerio submitted fraudulent applications for Economic Injury Disaster Loans, Paycheck Protection Program funds, and pandemic unemployment benefits, falsely inflating her salon’s revenues, payroll expenses, and employee counts.
The scheme netted her $194,212—money that was supposed to keep New Jersey’s small businesses afloat and workers fed. Instead, Valerio diverted the funds for personal gain, even as countless legitimate businesses in Middlesex County shuttered under the weight of lockdowns.
Federal prosecutors revealed that Valerio pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering before U.S. District Judge Robert Kirsch.
The charges carry a combined maximum of 30 years in prison, though sentencing won’t come until October 28, 2025—an agonizing delay for taxpayers who footed the bill for her deception.
The case, investigated by Homeland Security Investigations, the Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General, and the Social Security Administration, underscores a disturbing trend: while ordinary New Jerseyans queued at food banks and scrambled to make rent, fraudsters like Valerio treated relief funds as a personal slush fund.
La Vogue House of Beauty’s now-ironic advertising boasted of serving clients from across New Jersey and New York with “expert color services” and “highly trained stylists.”
Valerio proved more skilled at fleecing the government.
The District of New Jersey’s COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Strike Force, tasked with rooting out large-scale pandemic fraud, has made Valerio one of its latest targets.
Yet the question lingers: How many more like her remain undetected, siphoning relief dollars while Main Street suffers?
“This isn’t just a criminal problem. It is a political problem,” said Lisa McCormick, a New Jersey Democrat who predicted that the CARES Act would result in billions of dollars worth of waste, fraud, and abuse. “This is a breakdown of catastrophic proportions that happened because politicians failed the American taxpayer.”
McCormick said Congress failed to protect taxpayer money from partisan abuses when lawmakers gave Republican President Donald Trump a $6 trillion slush fund that was widely described as a $2.2 trillion emergency bailout measure.
Since then, thousands of individuals and entities have been prosecuted for fraud schemes exploiting CARES Act relief programs.
The IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) division launched 2,039 COVID fraud investigations involving $10 billion in attempted fraud, and the Department of Justice (DOJ) has charged more than 3,096 defendants with pandemic-relief fraud crimes as of December 2024.
For those with information on COVID-19 fraud, the Department of Justice urges reporting through its National Center for Disaster Fraud Hotline. But for Valerio, the time for tips is over—the only styling she’ll be doing now is in an orange jumpsuit.