Woman pleads guilty to stealing thousands from Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services

FRANKFORT, Ky. ( FOX 56 ) — A former Cabinet for Health and Family Services employee in Kentucky has pleaded guilty to stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars using clients’ names to make wire transfers .

According to the Department of Justice, 35-year-old Brittany May worked at the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, where she used the identities of 45 clients to write checks to herself.

Her plea agreement said that between July 2021 and May 2023, May was employed as an administrative specialist at the cabinet. As part of her duties, she managed provider payments for certain adoption and foster programs.

When some providers did not submit the required paperwork or stopped receiving payments because their services had expired, May directed funds that would have been paid to them to four bank accounts that she owned and controlled, according to the Department of Justice.

“To conceal these actions, May would submit false invoices, to make it appear as if the provider had requested payment.  And knowing the system would automatically send notifications to the provider’s listed address, indicating a payment had been made, May would change the provider addresses, to forward the notices elsewhere,” reads a release from the department.

The department said May misappropriated $444,663.77 in funds and initiated more than 540 fraudulent wire transfers to bank accounts she owned and controlled.

May is scheduled to be sentenced on November 5, 2024.  She faces a maximum of 20 years in prison for the wire fraud charge, as well as a mandatory, consecutive two-year sentence for aggravated identity theft.

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