74-year-old woman sentenced to 47 years in jail for defrauding through a trust called “Ayudando”

ALBUQUERQUE – A judge from Albuquerque, New Mexico, sentenced to 47 years a woman who through the trust “Ayudando Guardians, Inc” was dedicated to defraud hundreds of people, some of them with special needs.

Through the United States Department of Justice it was reported that Susan K. Harris, 74, and her husband William S. Harris, 60, were sentenced in court for conspiracy to defraud the United States, as well as other crimes that they carried out through the trust they managed.

Ayudando Guardians Inc was a non-profit corporation that gave guardianship, advice and financial management to hundreds of people, in some cases, people with some special needs, for which the federal district judge, Martha Vázquez, considered that the accused had “an incredible greed”.

Susan Harris was sentenced to 47 years in prison, plus three years of supervised probation, while her husband William has a sentence of 15 years, followed by three years on supervised release, in addition to having to pay the full amount of funds. stolen from victims.

The investigations date back to Dec. 5, 2017, when the Harris, as well as Sharon A. More, 64, and Susan’s son, Craig M. Young, 53, were indicted for various crimes, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, money laundering mail fraud and aggravated identity theft.

The couple fled to Oklahoma, but were arrested on April 15 of last year.

According to the investigations, Susan Harris “acted as president and owned 95 percent of Ayudando, while Moore acted as CFO and owned 5 percent, both had a pattern of criminal conduct from November 2006 to July 2017, which included the illegal transfer of money from customer accounts to a combined account without any user-based justification.

They regularly wrote checks for US $ 10,000 to combined accounts and the beneficiaries were members of their families.

Everything stolen was used to give themselves an extravagant lifestyle, where they acquired houses, vehicles and boats, plus US $ 4.4 million was spent to cover American Express charges incurred by the defendants and their families.

For Fred J. Federici, Acting United States Attorney for the District of New Mexico, the punishments they obtained were fair, “the conduct of the accused in attacking people with special needs, whom they were entrusted to protect, was both disgusting and despicable. ”.

He hopes that this punishment also serves as a warning so that other people do not commit these crimes.