Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that TRACII SHOW HUTSONA was sentenced today to 51 months in prison for her embezzlement of more than one million dollars as part of a confidence scheme. The sentence was imposed by U.S. District Judge Jesse M. Furman.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: “Not long after serving a lengthy sentence for a previous federal conviction, Tracii Show Hutsona betrayed her employer’s trust by misusing her employer’s financial information to fund her own luxury lifestyle for years. Her desire to live the high life at the expense of her victim has placed her back where she began — facing another substantial federal sentence.”
According to public court filings and statements made in Court:
Between October 2015 and November 2019, SHOW HUTSONA engaged in a confidence scheme to embezzle over a million dollars from a victim (the “Victim”). The Victim hired SHOW HUTSONA to serve as a personal assistant at the Victim’s home and trusted SHOW HUTSONA with access to the Victim’s financial information. Just a few months after she was hired, and while SHOW HUTSONA was on supervised release in connection with a previous federal fraud conviction in California, SHOW HUTSONA began using that access to finance her own luxury lifestyle.
In February 2016, SHOW HUTSONA opened a credit card account in the Victim’s name without the Victim’s knowledge or authorization. In September 2018, after the Victim learned about significant expenditures from the Victim’s financial accounts, the Victim confronted SHOW HUTSONA, who confessed that she had used the Victim’s financial accounts for her own personal use and repeatedly apologized to the Victim. Shortly thereafter, SHOW HUTSONA and the Victim signed an agreement, which stated, among other things, that SHOW HUTSONA had obtained an “additional user card” (the “User Card”) and that SHOW HUTSONA “had been using [the Victim’s] account since July 2016.” The agreement further stated that SHOW HUTSONA needed to repay $307,498.02 to the Victim. Having regained the Victim’s trust, in the days and months after executing the agreement with the Victim, SHOW HUTSONA continued to use the Victim’s financial accounts without permission, including through use of the User Card, which SHOW HUTSONA had represented to the Victim had been destroyed.
In September 2019, the Victim terminated her relationship with SHOW HUTSONA after discovering additional unauthorized charges made by SHOW HUTSONA. The Victim reported fraudulent expenditures on the Victim’s financial accounts to her bank. During the bank’s subsequent investigation, SHOW HUTSONA faxed the bank a fraudulent “Power of Attorney” document (the “Power of Attorney”), which appeared to be signed by the Victim and notarized. The Power of Attorney stated that SHOW HUTSONA would serve as the Victim’s “attorney-in-fact” and have control over the Victim’s “Banking and other financial institution transactions.” In fact, the Victim did not provide SHOW HUTSONA with any such power of attorney, the Victim did not sign the document, and the notary did not notarize it.
During the scheme, SHOW HUTSONA, without authorization, added herself as an additional account holder to at least two checking accounts and a savings account maintained by the Victim and obtained multiple credit cards in her own name but drawn on accounts of the Victim (collectively, the “Fraud Accounts”). Over the course of approximately four years, SHOW HUTSONA used the Fraud Accounts to steal over $1 million from the Victim. SHOW HUTSONA used the proceeds of her fraud scheme to make payments to SHOW HUTSONA’s concierge business and for personal expenses, such as mobile phones, restaurants and nightclubs, luxury hotels, and jewelry. To cover the purchases, SHOW HUTSONA transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars into the Fraud Accounts from a checking account of the Victim and two 529 college savings accounts maintained by the Victim on behalf of the Victim’s children.
In addition to her prison term, SHOW HUTSONA, 54, of Scottsdale, Arizona, was sentenced to three years of supervised release. She was further ordered to forfeit $1,148,759.28 and to pay restitution in the amount of $1,148,759.28.
Mr. Williams praised the outstanding investigative work of the United States Secret Service and the New York City Police Department.
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