TENNESSEE WOMAN PLEADS GUILTY TO WIRE FRAUD

Acting United States Attorney Ellison C. Travis announced that Trisha Milstead, age 53, of Newport, Tennessee, pled guilty before U.S. District Judge Brian A. Jackson to wire fraud. 

According to admissions made as part of her guilty plea, beginning in May 2024 and continuing through July 2024, Milstead engaged in a scheme to defraud two credit unions and three small businesses - a business in Tennessee that sells recreational vehicles (RVs) and travel trailers, a used car dealership in North Carolina, and a new and used car dealership in Gonzales, Louisiana.

Milstead opened new accounts online at a financial institution based in California and attempted to fund the accounts by initiating wire transfers from an account that she purportedly held at another financial institution based in Mississippi, knowing that she did not have any account at the Mississippi institution and that the transfers were fraudulent. Before the financial institutions realized that Milstead’s transfers should be reversed, however, she accessed the first institution’s online “bill payment” system and issued several large checks drawn on her accounts.

Milstead used one of the fraudulent checks in the amount of $38,000, to obtain a Ford F-150 Raptor truck from a dealership in North Carolina, another fraudulent check in the amount of $49,044.42 to obtain a 2020 Cadillac XT5 luxury sport utility vehicle from a dealership in Gonzales, Louisiana, and other fraudulent check in the amount of $35,350 to attempt to purchase a recreational vehicle from the business in Tennessee.

This matter was investigated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security - Homeland Security Investigations and the Gonzales Police Department with valuable assistance from Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Department and Rutherford County (North Carolina) Sheriff’s Department.  It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Alan A. Stevens, who also serves as Senior Litigation Counsel.