Big Sandy woman to serve prison time for defrauding county restaurant

Posted 10/24/24

A woman from Big Sandy has been sentenced to federal prison and ordered to pay restitution for federal violations in the Eastern District of Texas, announced U.S. Attorney Damien M. Diggs.  

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in

Big Sandy woman to serve prison time for defrauding county restaurant

Posted

A woman from Big Sandy has been sentenced to federal prison and ordered to pay restitution for federal violations in the Eastern District of Texas, announced U.S. Attorney Damien M. Diggs.  

Tamarisk Trejo Mathews, 52, pleaded guilty to wire fraud and was sentenced to 33 months in federal prison by U.S. District Judge Jeremy Kernodle on Oct. 16 and ordered to pay $334,252 restitution.  

According to information presented in court, Mathews was responsible for accounting duties of a restaurant and music venue in Wood County, referred to in court documents as RRI.

She worked in accounts receivable, accounts payable and had access to the financial accounts of the business.

Mathews also had authority to issue invoices to customers and issue checks and other payments to creditors.

Beginning in about December 2018, Mathews devised and began executing a scheme to wrongfully obtain money, funds and assets under the custody and control of the restaurant.  Among other things, she wrote checks that she was not authorized to write for personal expenditures, made charges in the business’s name from vendors such as Amazon and used business funds to make purchases through PayPal.

Mathews also opened an American Express account in the name of the business and obtained an American Express credit card. She used the card and account to make personal purchases and expenditures and paid American Express for those purchases and expenditures using business funds and the business bank account.

The scheme resulted in a loss to the business of $334,252.

This case was investigated by the FBI and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Alan Jackson.