Metro Lex News

A Frankfort woman, Brittany Joyce May, 35, pleaded guilty on Thursday before U.S. District Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove to committing wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

According to her plea agreement, between July 2021 and May 2023, May was employed as an administrative specialist at the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services (CHFS). As part of her duties, May managed payments to providers eligible for payments under certain adoption and foster programs. In doing so, she input provider information into the computer resource directory, including their personal identifying information and banking information. To receive payments under these programs, providers submitted request paperwork to CHFS. Upon receiving those requests, May would initiate payments via a wire transfer to the provider’s bank account. However, when some providers did not submit the required paperwork or stopped receiving payments because their services had expired, May would instead direct funds that would have been paid to them to four bank accounts that she owned and controlled.

To conceal these actions, May submitted false invoices to make it appear as if the provider had requested payment. Knowing the system would automatically send notifications to the provider’s listed address indicating a payment had been made, she changed the provider addresses to forward the notices elsewhere. From July 2021 to May 2023, May used the names and/or social security numbers of 45 providers in the computer resource directory to operate her scheme and further opened bank accounts using the personal identifying information of two providers.

In all, May misappropriated $444,663.77 in funds and initiated more than 540 fraudulent wire transfers to bank accounts she owned and controlled.

Carlton S. Shier IV, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky; Karen Wingerd, Acting Special Agent in Charge of Cincinnati Field Office IRS-Criminal Investigation; and Lesley Allison, Special Agent in Charge of United States Postal Inspection Service Pittsburgh Field Division jointly announced the guilty plea.

The investigation was conducted by the IRS and U.S. Postal Inspection Service. Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Mattingly-Williams prosecuted the case on behalf of the United States.

May is scheduled to be sentenced on November 5, 2024. She faces a maximum of 20 years in prison for the wire fraud charge as well as a mandatory consecutive two-year sentence for aggravated identity theft. However, any sentence will be imposed by the Court after its consideration of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and federal sentencing statutes.