A woman from Lubbock has been sentenced to 30 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to a $3.5 million fraud scheme, according to a Monday news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas.

After pleading guilty to one count of misprision of a felony, 51-year-old Hope Leticia Hastey was ordered to pay $3,545,894.36 in restitution and will spend over two years in prison. This decision was made on December 14 by U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix. “Misprision” refers to an individual’s failure to report a criminal act to the authorities.

Hastey founded two companies — Radar Supports LLC, which offers contract services such as speech and occupational therapy, and Radar Foundations Inc., a nonprofit that organizes community fundraisers to assist individuals with intellectual limitations.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Hastey failed to report that her bookkeeper, Andrew Travis Johnson, 59, submitted five fraudulent loan applications to the federal Paycheck Protection Program. This pandemic-era lending plan, a federal initiative intended to provide relief to U.S. businesses, was subject to considerable fraud, theft, and waste, as previously covered in The Dallas Express.

Instead of reporting the fraud to the authorities, Hastey used the funds to pay for a wedding, college tuition, home renovations, vacations, new vehicles, clothing, cosmetic and dental procedures, and more, according to the release.

At one point, Hastey wrote a check of $8,000 to someone working at Radar Supports to cover her tracks but ultimately cashed it into one of her bank accounts.

A probe conducted by the FBI, the Criminal Investigation Division of the IRS, and Homeland Security Investigations would later uncover Hastey’s illicit activity. For Johnson’s part in this scheme and others between April 2020 and April 2021, he was sentenced to 180 months in federal prison in August.

This fall, another fraudster in Dallas pleaded guilty to taking advantage of taxpayer-funded relief packages to reap over $40,000, as previously covered in The Dallas Express.

Monica Moreno, 40, misrepresented herself as the owner of an income tax service business called JBP Financial to qualify for several loans. She failed to disclose that she had a prior conviction for aggravated identity theft, aiding and abetting, and conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government.

Amid an ongoing officer shortage within the Dallas Police Department, fraud cases represent a considerable drain on stretched resources. Approximately 3,200 officers are currently employed by the City despite an analysis recommending a force of as many as 4,000 to serve public safety needs adequately.

As of December 18, there had been 2,312 fraud offenses logged citywide, according to DPD’s crime analytics dashboard.