The United States Attorney's Office Northern District of Iowa Press ReleasesFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
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United States Attorney Matt M. Dummermuth announced today that a New York woman who helped con a 75-year-old woman from Iowa into wiring over $200,000 to New York was sentenced to almost three years in prison today in federal court in Cedar Rapids. STACY DEFILIPPIS , 40, from Brooklyn, NY, received the prison term after a March 30, 2007, guilty plea to two counts of wire fraud. At the plea hearing, DEFILIPPIS admitted that, beginning in July 2002, she and other co-schemers contacted a 75-year-old woman in Clutier, Iowa, by telephone and falsely told her she had won a large cash sweepstakes prize but needed to pay taxes and other advance fees up front before her winnings could be sent. The schemers told the woman to wire the cash payments to them in the New York City area and promised the sweepstakes cash prize would be sent. Through June 2003, DEFILIPPIS and the other schemers continued to convince the elderly woman to send additional funds through money wire transfers by falsely representing the taxes and other advance fees had not been completely paid. DEFILIPPIS was sentenced today in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Chief Judge Linda R. Reade. DEFILIPPIS was sentenced to 33 months’ imprisonment and was ordered to make $264,872 in restitution to the victim. She must also serve a 3-year term of supervised release after the prison term. There is no parole in the federal system. Michael Van Houten, another participant in this scheme, was sentenced on November 16, 2006, to 14 months’ imprisonment and was also ordered to make $264,872 in restitution to the victim. DEFILIPPIS remains in the custody of the United States Marshal pending transfer to a Bureau of Prisons facility. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Ian K. Thornhill and investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
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