Tallahassee Federal Court has sentenced a contractor who worked for the Florida Prepaid College Program to two years and nine months in prison after she manipulated account holder information to steal $42,000.
According to court documents, Jamilla Ciar Hall was an employee of Intuition College Savings Solutions when the Florida Prepaid College Program contracted the company “to provide customer service and records administration services.”
The indictment stated that the former contractor accessed existing Florida Prepaid plans and changed the mailing address and other contact information listed in these accounts. Hall then posed as the account holders and submitted cancellations in their names, prompting the program to issue refund checks that were mailed to false addresses.
She was then charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud, five counts of mail fraud, and aggravated identity theft.
“This woman abused her position of trust to rob money from the Florida Prepaid program. But worse, she robbed from unsuspecting parents who invested in a future college education for their loved one,” US Attorney for the Northern District of Florida Lawrence Keefe said.
Florida is among several states that allow parents to pay for their children’s college tuition in advance based on current rates.
Similar Education-Related Theft
The University of Kentucky experienced a similar case in which a university audit caught two former employees using school funds to “purchase 84 iPhones, high-end tech equipment, and other travel and personal items.”
Stephanie Carpenter and Derita Graves, who worked in the College of Education, stole $256,000 through their university procurement cards and their personal spending became “so rampant that the STEM department’s procard expenditures had increased nearly 300 percent over 2016.”