Former Kentucky state employee sentenced for $444,000 theft. ‘Brazen breach of trust.’
A former Kentucky state government employee who stole more than $444,000 and used much of it for pain pills and gambling has been sentenced to three years in federal prison, according to a news release from U.S. Attorney Carlton S. Shier IV.
Brittany Joyce May, 35, of Frankfort, pleaded guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
The thefts happened when May worked at the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, where her duties included managing payments to foster parents.
May submitted fake invoices for payments to foster parents who had not requested a payment or were no longer eligible, and diverted the money to accounts she controlled, according to the court record.
She changed the addresses of people in the computer system so they wouldn’t receive notice a payment had been made.
May acknowledged that she used identifying information from 45 people to initiate more than 540 wire transfers of money to herself, stealing $444,663 from the cabinet between July 2021 and May 2023.
May said in a letter to U.S. District Judge Gregory F, Van Tatenhove that she suffered emotional, physical and sexual abuse as a child and ultimately developed an addiction to pain pills.
May said she started stealing from the cabinet after an aunt called to let her know about an opportunity to buy 70 pain pills at a reduced price.
May said she used some money to help others, buying clothes, Christmas gifts and food for people and helping family members with bills. She said that since age 16, she had been the one in her family that others leaned on for help.
But May’s attorney, William Eric Branco, said in a sentencing memorandum that she also spent a good bit of the money on pain pills and gambling.
May sometimes gambled away thousands of dollars a week at casinos, said Branco, who sought a sentence for May below the advisory range of 51 to 57 months.
May said she justified the thefts by thinking she “was not stealing from families or children, I was stealing from the government.”
The thefts were not a victimless crime, however, Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea L. Mattingly Williams said in a sentencing memo.
May took money from an agency “that struggles financially to fund the demands, and needs, of foster and adoptive children in Kentucky,” the prosecutor said, calling it a “ brazen breach of trust.”
Van Tatenhove sentenced May on Tuesday.
The federal Internal Revenue Service and U.S. Postal Inspection Services investigated the case.
