A former Home Depot employee from Covington, Georgia, was sentenced to 36 months in prison for stealing over 8,000 gift cards worth more than $4 million.
Felecia Ingram, 53, was sentenced Thursday for the theft of 8,325 gift cards worth $4,085,043 in total.
Prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Atlanta said Ingram stole the gift cards from March 2020-July 2021 while most employees were working from home due to COVID.
Ingram, a gift card sales associate, used her network access credentials to activate the stolen gift cards by creating false orders for them, according to a press release.
“The false orders made it appear that the cards were sent to corporate events and used for legitimate business purposes. Ingram later deleted the false orders in the system to conceal her thefts.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Ingram used the money to finance her gambling habit.
Home Depot’s gift card team eventually discovered a discrepancy in the “gift card ledger balances” and traced the discrepancy to Ingram.
“She engaged in a calculated scheme that involved entering false gift card orders, which she later deleted to cover her tracks. She has now been sentenced to federal prison to pay for her deceit,” said U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia Theodore S. Hertzberg.
In addition to serving 3 years and 1 month in prison, Ingram is ordered to pay Home Depot $3,946,776 in restitution.
“Exploiting her position for personal gain, this criminal thought she could use her knowledge of her employer’s business practices to conceal a multi-million-dollar fraud scheme,” said Robert Donovan, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the United States Secret Service Atlanta Field Office. “Thanks to the tireless work of our agents, cooperation from the Home Depot, and the skill of the prosecutors at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, she will spend the next three years in prison paying for her crimes.”
