Woman admits stealing dead Columbus baby's ID, using defunct bakeries to gain COVID loans

Cole Behrens, The Columbus Dispatch
·3 min read
Ava Misseldine, 49, agreed to pay more than $1.5 million in restitution and forfeit her Utah home and profits from the recent sale of her Michigan home — both of which she bought with stolen government money — as part of her plea to 16 counts of wire and passport fraud in U.S. District Court in Columbus.
Ava Misseldine, 49, agreed to pay more than $1.5 million in restitution and forfeit her Utah home and profits from the recent sale of her Michigan home — both of which she bought with stolen government money — as part of her plea to 16 counts of wire and passport fraud in U.S. District Court in Columbus.

A former Columbus woman pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday to charges that she stole the identity of a dead baby to obtain a passport, a job and fraudulent federal COVID relief loans for her local bakeries that had been defunct for years.

Ava Misseldine, 49, agreed to pay more than $1.5 million in restitution and forfeit her Utah home and profits from the recent sale of her Michigan home — both of which she bought with stolen government money — as part of her plea to 16 counts of wire and passport fraud in U.S. District Court in Columbus.

Court documents show that Misseldine received an Ohio identification card in 2003 and later a Social Security card, driver's license and passport using the name of Brie Bourgeoise, who died as an infant in 1979 and is buried in a Columbus cemetery.

Federal investigators began looking into Misseldine last year after she tried to renew a fraudulent passport, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

In 2007, Misseldine used the stolen identity to obtain a student pilot certificate and U.S. passport, according to court records. Misseldine submitted paperwork claiming she needed the passport to travel internationally in her occupation as a flight attendant for JetSelect, a premium charter and aviation service company based in Columbus where she was employed under a false identity.

Over the next 13 years, Misseldine continued to obtain identity documents in both her real and fake names. An investigation was launched in 2021 when she tried to renew the fraudulent passport, according to federal prosecutors.

Court documents show Misseldine also obtained about $1.5 million in federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans in 2020 using both her real and fake names.

More pandemic relief fraud: Two Columbus-area men among 47 charged in $250 million theft of COVID relief funds

The federal PPP loans were intended to help small businesses continue to pay their employees in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and were forgiven if employers kept their workers' wages stable.

Prosecutors allege Misseldine obtained more than a dozen such loans using forged documents on behalf of at least 10 bakeries, restaurants and catering companies in Ohio that have not operated for years or never existed, according to court documents.

These included three former bakeries, now defunct, that she owned: Sugar Inc. Cupcakes & Tea Salon in Dublin and Koko Tea Salon & Bakery in New Albany and at Easton Town Center.

Sen. Rob Portman:COVID-19 relief fraud "probably the biggest fraud ever committed against the American people."

Misseldine used the pandemic relief loan money to purchase a home for $647,500 adjacent to Zion National Park in Utah and a home for $327,500 in Michigan, according to prosecutors.

In August 2021 and September 2021, Misseldine  obtained driver’s licenses in both names after moving to Utah, prosecutors said.

Misseldine was arrested in Utah in June. Conviction for wire fraud is punishable by up to 30 years in prison, while passport fraud carries a potential maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

@Colebehr_report

Cbehrens@dispatch.com

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Woman pleads guilty after using deceased infant's identity for pandemic aid money