Erin D. Jones, 49, of Baker, Louisiana, has been sentenced to 30 months in federal prison following her conviction for wire fraud.
The court further sentenced Jones to serve three years of supervised release following her term of imprisonment, ordered her to pay $334,092.03 in restitution, and entered a money judgment against the defendant for an additional $334,092.03.
According to admissions made as part of her guilty plea, Jones worked part-time at a small business in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, that provided truck and diesel engine repair services and was trusted to assist with the company’s book-keeping and accounting, among other tasks.
Jones held bank accounts at JPMorgan Chase Bank and Hancock Whitney Bank, and the company also maintained a business bank account at Hancock Bank.
Beginning in or about May of 2019 and continuing through April of 2024, Jones knowingly executed a scheme to defraud the company and to obtain money by means of materially false and fraudulent pretences, representations, and promises.
One of Jones’ job responsibilities was to retrieve the company’s mail from a post office box that the company maintained in Baton Rouge. Using her access to the post office box, she would retrieve checks that had been issued to the company and mailed to the company by its customers.
The checks were drawn on the customers’ bank accounts at banks located across the country. After gaining control of each check, Jones would endorse the back of the check and deposit it into one of her own personal bank accounts, either by using an ATM or making a remote online deposit.
Jones concealed her scheme in several ways. On many occasions, she would use her access to the company’s accounting program to delete the underlying invoices that caused the company’s customers and vendors to make the payments.
Over the course of the scheme, Jones embezzled and fraudulently deposited approximately 431 checks payable to the company, totalling approximately $334,000.
