Brooke Darby, 29, of Fort Worth, Texas, was sentenced Monday to two years and four months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for her role in a credit card scheme, according to U.S. Attorney Wendy J. Olson.
Chief U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill also ordered Darby to pay $15,325.25 in restitution. Darby pleaded guilty on November 10 of last year to committing wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
According to Darby’s plea agreement, she admitted to traveling to Idaho -- along with her co-defendant, Charmaine Montgomery -- for the purpose of making fraudulent purchases of gift cards and merchandise from retail stores, using stolen credit card numbers encoded onto stock gift cards, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Darby admitted to obtaining the stock debit cards encoded with unauthorized credit card numbers, and making purchases at retail stores on June 23 and June 24, 2015, Olson said.
Darby admitted she and Montgomery purchased about $13,095.90 in gift cards and merchandise with the fraudulently-encoded gift cards. Upon her arrest, Darby and Montgomery were found in possession of approximately 250 gift cards encoded with unauthorized credit card numbers.
Montgomery pleaded guilty on December 1, of last year to committing wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. Her sentencing is set for February 11.
The case was investigated by the United States Secret Service and the Boise Police Department.
