Woman, 70, sentenced in mail fraud case

Woman, 70, sentenced in mail fraud case
Gets 28 months for stealing $921,000 from employers
By SANFORD J. SCHMIDT


The Telegraph
EAST ST. LOUIS - A federal judge Tuesday sentenced a 70-year-old woman with a million-dollar gambling addiction to 28 months in prison after questioning whether federal authorities could go after the gaming companies for restitution.

U.S. District Judge G. Patrick Murphy of East St. Louis sentenced Flora Buckingham of Granite City to prison and to pay $921,000 in restitution, but the judge noted there is little chance the defendant ever will be able to repay the money she stole from her employer.

"Why can't we get that money back?" Murphy asked Assistant U.S. Attorney Suzanne Garrison.

He noted that if Buckingham had purchased an expensive car with the money, the government could go after the car for restitution, but the gambling losses are gone.

Garrison answered that the collection specialists at the U.S. Department of Justice can be "creative" in devising methods of getting restitution.

"We will look at that collection angle," she said.

Buckingham pleaded guilty in September to federal mail fraud charges for stealing the money from her employer, Ahmad and Rana Pediatrics of Granite City.

A court document stated she was the office manager for the doctors and would write third-party checks to pay off her credit cart accounts. The fraud took place between May 2004 and November 2010.

The document specifically mentions a check for $9,275 payable to Buckingham's credit card account, drawn on the business account of the doctors, Shafique Ahmad and Jamil Rana. The transactions were done through the mail, so she was charged with mail fraud.

Garrison asked for a 36-month sentence. Federal guidelines called for a sentence of between 33 months and 20 years.

Before Murphy asked the lawyers to present their arguments at the sentencing hearing, he lamented the number of otherwise decent people that had come before him because they stole to feed a gambling addiction.

"This is a paradigm that I have seen often. She lived her life as a gambling addict; it's not unusual at all," the judge said. "She had some skill and worked hard, but she treated her depression with a poker machine."

Garrison said the sheer magnitude of the theft stands out.

"This is an extraordinarily serious offense. This is a breath-taking abuse of trust," she said.

She asked the judge to imagine translating the amount stolen into the number of hours of crying babies, anxious parents and medical study it took to earn that amount.

She said Dr. Ahmad was planning to attend the sentencing hearing Tuesday in order to testify, but he canceled because the office was swamped with patients. She said the doctors could not figure out why they were not making more money, given the number of hours they were putting in.

Defense attorney Bill Lucco acknowledged his client had broken a trust but said that she used gambling to treat depression, especially after her disabled sister died.

Lucco pointed out that his client cared for her sister for 19 years and would do anything to help others, especially family members, many of whom came to the hearing Tuesday.

Lucco suggested a sentence of one year and one day.

Buckingham was in tears when she made her formal statement. She said she does not know why she did what she did and admitted she broke a great trust.

She said Dr. Rana told her on Nov. 1, 2010, that the doctors needed another office manager like her. That was when a bell rang in her head, and she broke down and confessed to the doctors.

She pleaded guilty shortly after that.

Murphy pointed out before pronouncing sentence that the people who operate casinos know how much money they are going to make when a person like Buckingham walks in the door.

"Fifty yeas ago they were called fish, or in harsher terms, suckers," he said. "They are not gambling; you are."

He acknowledged that the crime was "a breach of trust of the first order."

Murphy said, however, that he was taking the defendant's age into account. Had she been 50, he would have gone along with the 36 months suggested by Garrison, he said.

The judge said he hopes prison time for Buckingham might deter others.

"I can only hope that putting a 70-year-old woman in federal prison might at least give people pause," he said. "It's a heck of a thing."