Denham Springs Woman Sentenced for Wire Fraud

BATON ROUGE, LA—United States Attorney Donald J. Cazayoux, Jr. announced yesterday that U.S. District Court Chief Judge Brian A. Jackson sentenced Tara S. Babin, age 38, of Denham Springs, Louisiana, to a term of imprisonment of 17 months and two years’ supervised release after imprisonment. Babin had previously pled guilty to one count of wire fraud.

Between March 2009 and April 2011, Babin systematically embezzled funds belonging to her employer, a local doctor. As the office manager, Babin had access to her employer’s merchant account and electronic payment machine. To execute her wire fraud scheme, Babin used the office electronic payment machine to transmit credit/refund requests to her employer’s electronic payment contractor. Once the electronic payment contractor received the fraudulent credit/refund requests, it would wire funds from her employer’s merchant account into bank and credit card accounts belonging to Babin. Through this scheme, Babin unlawfully obtained $113,718.92 in funds belonging to her employer.

This matter was investigated by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Louisiana and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The matter was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Chris Dippel.