A former D.C. authorities worker was sentenced to 4 years in jail Wednesday for defrauding a metropolis Department of Employment Services program of over $350,000.

Rhayda Barnes Thomas, 52, was sentenced to 4 years in jail, ordered to pay $356,110.64 in restitution, ordered to forfeit one other $318,415, and given each three years of parole and 360 hours of neighborhood service to satisfy after her jail sentence ends, in response to a Justice Department launch.

Barnes Thomas was an worker of the DOES Project Empowerment Program, which offers assist discovering a job to these with limitations to employment, corresponding to felons and drug addicts. She was employed there in 2014 after serving an earlier jail time period for defrauding one other former employer, the Charles County, Maryland, college system.

From May 2015 by April 2018, Barnes Thomas used the revived profiles of 16 former Project Empowerment individuals and modified a database to make it seem as in the event that they had been working for a nonprofit group. She additionally impersonated a former worker of the nonprofit to approve the work hours she had entered in this system database.

As a part of the scheme, Barnes Thomas ordered alternative debit playing cards to carry the funds of the fraudulently revived program profiles. The D.C. authorities then requested funds be placed on the playing cards, which had been managed by Barnes Thomas.

She was indicted in September and pleaded responsible to 1 depend of wire fraud on May 17.

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