Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

NEW ORLEANS – Sonovah Judith Hillman, 29, a resident of Hercules, California, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud before United States District Judge Jane Triche Milazzo.

 

According to court documents, Hillman, acted as a “money mule” in a scheme to victimize Victim A, a floating crane and stevedore company headquartered in Convent. Hillman, and her co-conspirator(s) engaged in a “business email compromise” scheme. They obtained access without authorization to the email accounts of one or more employees of Victim A for the purpose of getting private data, including usernames, passwords, bank account information, and the content of email accounts through a “phishing” scam. After gaining access to an email account of a Victim A employee, the individual(s) arranged to have emails in the account forwarded to a separate email account under their control.   Then, Hillman’s co-conspirators registered a domain name similar to Victim A’s domain (for example, “Victin A” instead of “Victim A”). Pretending to be representatives of Victim A, they sent emails to Victim A’s customers, including Victim B. The false emails stated that there had been an audit of Victim A’s bank accounts and that Victim A’s customers should remit funds owed to a new bank account.

 

On about May 10, 2017, Hillman’s co-conspirators contacted one of Victim A’s customers (Victim B) via email and, pretending to be employees of Victim A, instructed that Victim B should remit funds owed to Victim A, approximately $92,007.85, to a Bank of America account that belonged to Hillman. After Victim B sent the funds to Hillman’s, account, Hillman, engaged in a series of transactions over the next five days to transfer the money to others, withdraw over $40,000 in cash, and spend ill-gotten money on personal items, including vacations and airline flights.

 

Hillman, faces a maximum term of 20 years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000 up to three years of supervised release after imprisonment, and a mandatory $100 special assessment. Sentencing before Judge Milazzo has been scheduled for June 3.

 

U.S. Attorney Strasser praised the work of the United States Department of Homeland Security – Homeland Security Investigations and the United States Coast Guard Investigative Service. Assistant United States Attorney Jordan Ginsberg, supervisor of the Public Corruption Unit, is in charge of the prosecution.