REENBELT, MARYLAND— A woman who stole $430,000 from her employer and used some of that money to buy a house in Ghana was sentenced on Tuesday to 10 years in prison, officials said.
U.S. District Judge Roger W. Titus sentenced Mercy Coffie-Joseph, age 41, of Largo, Maryland, after she was found guilty of wire fraud, money laundering, passport fraud and aggravated identity theft.
Judge Titus also ordered that Coffie-Joseph pay restitution of $472,148.52.
Evidence indicated that Joseph was employed by Systems Assessment & Research Inc., where she had the authority to make electronic payments to contractors.
According to evidence presented at her four day trial, from 2010 to February 2013, Coffie-Joseph used her position as an accounting manager at a Maryland company to fraudulently access the company’s bank accounts and transfer approximately $470,000 to bank accounts she controlled.
She then used about $120,000 of those funds to buy a home in Ghana, officials said.
Coffie-Joseph also stole an individual’s identity and obtained a passport in the victim’s name, using her own picture, and then traveled to Ghana on the fraudulent passport, during which trip she visited the home she had purchased there with the fraudulently obtained money, according to authorities.