Jamestown Woman Receives Prison Term on Wire Fraud Charges

GREENSBORO, NC—United States Attorney Ripley Rand announced that Angela Womack, age 51, of Jamestown, North Carolina, received a prison term on multiple counts of wire fraud and money laundering.

On January 17, 2014, United States District Judge Catherine C. Eagles sentenced Womack to 70 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, and ordered her to pay restitution of $2,857,201.85 and a special assessment of $300.00. Womack will begin serving her sentence not later than March 7, 2014.

Womack worked as the accounts payable manager of Carolina Steel Group LLC, a business located in Guilford County. As accounts payable manager, Womack prepared the company’s reports to provide that vendors would be paid.

While working at Carolina Steel Group, Womack opened non-profit accounts in the name of “IBOCF.” Unbeknownst to her employer, Womack created vendor checks payable to International BOCF, even though this company was not a vendor to Carolina Steel Group, and also caused additional checks payable to International BOCF to be included on the company’s vendor reports. Womack then ensured that banks would honor the company’s checks (including the fraudulent ones) by uploading additional fraudulent reports to a financial clearinghouse website.

In an attempt to hide her scheme, Womack changed internal accounting entries so that the checks to International BOCF appeared to be written to legitimate vendors of Carolina Steel Group and altered internal accounting data using another employee’s access codes. Womack deposited fraudulently obtained checks into the IBOCF account she controlled and used the funds from that account for her own benefit.

This case was investigated by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation Division. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Robert Hamilton.