Horseshoe Bend Woman Sentenced to 41 Months for Wire Fraud for Defrauding Saint Alphonsus Health System

BOISE – Lois Soito, 60, of Horseshoe Bend, was sentenced to 41 months in federal prison for wire fraud U.S. Attorney Bart M. Davis announced today. Chief U.S. District Judge David C. Nye also ordered Soito to serve three years of supervised release following her release from prison and to pay $1,483,963.82 in restitution. Soito pleaded guilty on November 13, 2019.

According to court records, for 22 years, Soito was employed by the Saint Alphonsus Health System (SAHS) in Boise. In her job, Soito had access to money raised at the Festival of Trees. Beginning in January 2005, Soito devised a scheme to defraud SAHS to obtain money and property. Beginning in January 2005, Soito kept checks intended for SAHS instead of depositing them in the appropriate account. She then fraudulently deposited some of the checks into a bank account used to reimburse SAHS vendors. From that account, Soito wrote checks payable to herself and deposited them into a credit union account she controlled. Soito also used some of the checks that she kept to conceal her theft of funds from the Festival of Trees from 2014 through 2018. Soito used similar methods with other accounts connected to the SAHS between approximately 2014 and 2019 to embezzle additional funds.

This case was investigated by FBI and Boise Police Department.

# # #