Who is Stephanie Dianna Elliott? NC woman used 16 fake names to scam govt for $2.2 million to shop and travel
FAYETTEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA: A North Carolina woman used dozens of fake names and businesses to dupe in millions of dollars in government contracts for more than a decade, according to federal prosecutors. Stephanie Dianna Elliott, 45, allegedly secured government contracts for everything from prison food to military supplies without ever delivering the goods or paying third-party vendors who fulfilled the orders. Instead, federal prosecutors said she kept the money for fancy vacations and shopping.
Last month, she was indicted on 26 counts of wire fraud and five counts of money laundering, the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina said on Tuesday, April 13 in a news release. Fayetteville woman will be facing up to 20 years in prison on each count if she’s convicted.
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State and federal governments grant billions of dollars every year to adequate contractors, the most valuable of which are doled out by the US Department of Defense for military operations. Elliott’s alleged scheme began in 2006 with a contract to give 4.5 million sandbags to Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina had ravaged the state the previous year. Prosecutors stated that she won the contract by putting in a low bid, then settled a deal with a sandbag manufacturing business to deliver the sandbags to the National Guard at a higher price. She allegedly stood to lose more than $500,000 on the deal. But when it came time to pay the company, prosecutors said Elliott gave about a third of what was owed.
She used what was left of the $900,000 she got from the government to fund victim restitution in a court case, buy a Mercedes, wire her then-husband money and make at least six trips in eight weeks to Las Vegas and Atlantic City, according to an indictment filed last month.
Prosecutors have said that she organized a similar scam in 2008 under a deal to deliver food to Louisiana prisons using a food distribution company based in Mississippi. She used around 17 businesses and 16 nicknames, as well as her real name, to obtain the deals and relied on the government to send the amount before the goods were received.
Over the next 10 years, prosecutors said Elliott secured more than 1,000 federal defense contracts worth at least $2.2 million. She has allegedly spent the money on lottery tickets, restaurants and trips — including $15,000 on flights, a hotel and cash withdrawals at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, according to the indictment.
Elliott also used the contract money to shop at Victoria’s Secret, fly to Jamaica and Aruba and fund trips to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, prosecutors said.