July 28, 2022 5:40 p.m.
The owner of a Roseburg in-home daycare facility pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court for stealing federal childcare funds.
Katie Jo Thompson, age 31, pleaded guilty to one count of theft of government funds.
A release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office – District of Oregon, said according to court documents, Thompson cared for her disabled child while also operating a licensed childcare business out of her Roseburg residence. Thompson applied for various federal benefits programs administered by the Social Security Administration on her child’s behalf. In these applications, Thompson misrepresented her household income, prompting an SSA investigation.
The release said the investigation revealed that Thompson had applied for and received federal Employment Related Day Care program funds administered by the Oregon Department of Human Services to support her business. The ERDC program requires that childcare program operators maintain attendance logs for one year. When SSA investigators obtained these logs from Thompson, they reportedly showed that she had misrepresented the number of children in her daycare facility, resulting in ERDC payments for childcare not provided. Thompson further claimed children were present in the facility who have never attended.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office claimed that Thompson also used individuals hired to care for her daughter who were funded by Medicaid’s Personal Support Worker program to work in her daycare facility, thereby allowing Thompson to forgo paying daycare employees herself.
Officials said between January 2018 and December 2019, Thompson fraudulently received and converted to personal use more than $329,000 in federal assistance funds provided by SSA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
In April, Thompson was charged by criminal information with one count of theft of government funds.
Thompson faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three year’s supervised release. She will be sentenced on November 14th by U.S. District Judge Ann L. Aiken. As part of her plea agreement, Thompson will pay restitution to the agencies she defrauded.
The case was investigated by the SSA Office of Inspector General with assistance from the Oregon Department of Human Services. Assistant U.S. Attorney Rachel Sowray is prosecuting the case.