Belleville woman gets prison for defrauding law enforcement accounts
From Illinois Business Journal news services
EAST ST. LOUIS – A Belleville woman whose fiancee was killed in the line of duty in 2011 was sentenced Friday to a year and a day in federal prison as a result of her convictions for mail fraud and wire fraud in a scheme to defraud and embezzle from the U.S. Marshals Survivors Benefit Fund and The BackStoppers, Inc.
United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois Stephen R. Wigginton said Pamela Denise Robtoy, 55, was also ordered to serve three years supervised release and pay restitution in the amount of $18,293.83.
Evidence revealed in court showed that Robtoy embezzled funds from the 3rd Annual John Perry Golf Benefit held in October 2013. The proceeds from the charitable event were to benefit the U.S. Marshals Survivors Benefit Fund and The BackStoppers, Inc., which supports the families of officers killed in the line of duty.
The Annual John Perry Golf Benefit Tournament was a charitable benefit held annually to remember Deputy U.S. Marshal John Brookman Perry, who was killed in the line of duty on Tuesday, March 8, 2011.Robtoy was Perry’s fiancee and was handling money for the funds. Instead of placing it in the funds, she was using it for personal expenses, accounting to documents.
The wire fraud count charged that Robtoy sent an email to a deputy United States marshal falsely indicating that the checks to the U.S. Marshals Survivors Benefit Fund and The BackStoppers, Inc. had been reissued in an effort to avoid detection of her scheme.
The investigation was conducted by the Postal Inspection Service with the assistance of the Internal Revenue Service/Criminal Investigation and the U.S. Marshal’s Service. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Norman R. Smith.
