FOXBOROUGH, MA – OCTOBER 3: Tom Brady #12 of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers waves to New England Patriots fans after an NFL game at Gillette Stadium on October 3, 2021 in Foxborough, Massachusetts. (Photo by Kevin Sabitus/Getty Images)
A New Hampshire woman will spend more than two years in prison, partly because she wanted to see Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers play the New England Patriots.
A federal judge handed that sentence down to 39-year-old Stephanie Pratt for wire fraud on Thursday after she stole nearly $500,000 from her employer in 2021. Prosecutors say she spent that cash on things like tickets for Brady's return to Gillette Stadium, a hot tub, plane tickets and more than $50,000 worth of items from Amazon.
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Pratt was sentenced to 30 months in prison and three years of supervised release. She had pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud back in August.
“The defendant used her position of trust as an employee to steal nearly a half-million dollars from a small New Hampshire business," U.S. Attorney Jane Young said in a statement. "Among other items, she used the stolen money to purchase a hot tub and she spent over $5,600 on lavish tickets to watch Tom Brady’s return to Gillette Stadium."
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"The defendant’s criminal conduct was bold, as she began her fraud only six months after serving a sentence for stealing from a previous employer."
Jodi Cohen, special agent in charge of the FBI Boston Division, called Pratt "a greedy, serial fraudster," in a statement.
Pratt worked as the office administrator for a company based in Hinsdale, and had full access to the company's finances, including its bank accounts and credit cards. Over the course of 6 1/2 years, she stole $492,325 from the company. Prosecutors said she started stealing shortly after she was released from jail for stealing almost $10,000 from her previous employer.
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She cashed unauthorized checks to herself and entered them as payments to legitimate vendors in the company's account system, according to prosecutors. She also used the company's credit cards to make over 1,000 unauthorized personal purchases, including the Patriots tickets and the hot tub. She also used the stolen money on things like plane tickets and miscellaneous herbs and spices.
When she was confronted about the thefts, prosecutors said Pratt repeatedly lied to the company, even claiming that the owner had her cash the checks to funnel the money to the owner's son. Pratt didn't know it, but the owner's son had already died.
Pratt also doctored the company's financial records, prosecutors said, editing their credit card statements to delete unauthorized purchases. When asked why there were missing entries in the statements, she said she had adjusted them to make them easier to read. She also claimed that her misuse of the company credit card was due to her clicking the wrong button at checkout, even though it happened over 1,000 times.
And when she was fired for stealing from the company, prosecutors said Pratt demanded that the owner's widow pay her a Christmas bonus.
