A Tennessee woman who was already on probation for fraud when she stole 1000’s of {dollars} in Covid relief funds and used the cash to travel to a Florida resort and obtain plastic surgery was sentenced this week to greater than six years in prison and ordered to pay the cash again.
Leslie Bethea, 30, of Surgoinsville, pleaded responsible to one rely of wire fraud and one rely of creating a false assertion to her probation officer after being indicted in June on wire fraud, cash laundering and different expenses. Choose J. Ronnie Greer sentenced Bethea to 78 months in prison on Monday.
In accordance to the Division of Justice, Bethea utilized for a Payroll Safety Program mortgage in March 2021, claiming she had made $99,835 in 2019 — a 12 months throughout which she was in prison for wire fraud. Bethea additionally claimed on the appliance that she had not been convicted of any fraud offenses in the 5 years prior.
She obtained a $20,805 PPP mortgage in April 2021 and used a portion of it to pay for a five-day journey to the Trump Worldwide Seaside Resort in Sunny Isles Seaside, Florida, in accordance to the Division of Justice. Whereas there, she additionally used the cash to pay for a beauty surgery process, the Justice Division mentioned. Prosecutors say she lied to her probation officer about her funds and travel when she returned.
“Upon her return to Tennessee, Bethea then submitted a false month-to-month supervision report to her probation officer for the month of April 2021,” the DOJ mentioned. “In that report, Bethea falsely claimed she had solely obtained $200 in the course of the month of April, falsely claimed she had no bills of greater than $500 (although she paid greater than that quantity to the Sunny Isles Seaside resort and the plastic surgery apply whereas in Florida), and falsely acknowledged that she had not travelled out of the state of Tennessee in the course of the month of April 2021.”
As well as to her sentence in prison, Bethea was ordered to pay restitution of the quantity of the mortgage.
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