A Florida woman has been sentenced to prison for defrauding her grandmother of more than $300,000, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Illinois.
Tanya M. Aboseada, of Pompano Beach, Fla., was sentenced to three years in prison on Sept. 23. Aboseada, 39, previously pleaded guilty in May to 12 counts of wire fraud. The young woman convinced her grandmother, an Illinois resident, to wire money to her bank account “under false pretenses on at least 12 occasions between November 2021 and August 2022,” netting a total of $317,049.
Among the tricks Aboseada used against his grandmother were “needing money to transfer his truck registration into his name, owing money to the IRS, paying attorney fees and fines for a vehicle accident he was involved in, and paying money to the family of a child he allegedly killed in a vehicle accident to avoid going to jail.”
In addition to his prison sentence, Aboseada was ordered to pay back the full amount in restitution. The lawsuit was filed as part of the Justice Department’s Eder Justice Initiative, which aims to “combat elder abuse, neglect, financial fraud and scams targeting our nation’s older adults.”
“The scam perpetrated by Tanya Aboseada relied on the love and devotion of a family member, and was in many ways even more heartless than when the perpetrator was a stranger,” FBI Agent Christopher Johnson said. “The FBI has an unwavering commitment to bringing justice to victims of elder fraud and to pursuing those who deliberately target vulnerable seniors.”
“Older Americans are targeted by scammers who hide behind computer screens while they steal money,” FBI Agent David Nanz added. “But criminals who steal their own family members’ hard-earned life savings show an even greater disregard for this vulnerable population.”