Alexandria woman sentenced 41 months in prison for wire fraud

A 56-year-old Alexandria woman was sentenced to 41 months in prison for ordering more than $600,000 in cell phones through her former employer, the YMCA of Metropolitan Washington, and keeping the money.

The former office manager at YMCA-DC was sentenced Thursday, according to an announcement from the U.S. Department of Justice. According to court documents, she worked at YMCA-DC from 2007 until her termination in May 2019.

“While working at the YMCA-DC, (the former office manager) devised a scheme to defraud by taking advantage of an arrangement with Verizon Wireless to sell YMCA-DC, as a non-profit organization, cell phones for its employees at a discounted price,”  according to DOJ. “From at least January 2016 through April 2019, (she) placed online orders for discounted cell phones from Verizon that she personally received, disconnected from service, and sold to companies that buy and sell new or slightly used phones.”

The YMCA employee set up a fraudulent “YMCA” account with Verizon, and bought discount phones with non-YMCA money in order to resell them at a profit, according to YMCA-DC.

The woman pleaded guilty in October to ordering more than 1,000 phones for YMCA-DC employees, which were sold to third-party companies. The phones were valued at $618,090, which she was ordered to repay by U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth. SHe must also undergo three years of supervised release after her term.