A Denison, Texas woman who faked stomach cancer in order to delay a prison sentence has been sentenced to an additional five years in federal prison, announced U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Erin Nealy Cox.
Kassie Bond Carpenter, 42, pleaded guilty in February to obstruction of justice. She was sentenced Thursday afternoon by U.S. District Judge Jane J. Boyle.
In plea papers, Ms. Carpenter – who’d already been sentenced to 41 months in federal prison for wire fraud – admitted she attempted to delay her prison reporting date by submitting to the Court at least nine sets of forged medical records indicating she had been diagnosed and was receiving treatment for adenocarcinoma, a cancer that begins in the glandular cells that line the stomach and other organs.
Ms. Carpenter “is now receiving radiation therapy for her stomach cancer,” her attorney wrote in an motion asking to delay her reporting date, noting that the defendant had access to only some of the medical records related to her treatment.
“Without proper treatment, [her] cancer will turn malignant and metastasize,” he added.
Based on the sham medical records, the Court granted multiple extensions, delaying her prison reporting date from Aug. 22, 2017 to Jan. 30, 2018, then to Aug. 7, 2018, then to Nov. 6, 2018, then to Jan. 29, 2019, and finally to April 29, 2019.
On Jan. 29, 2019, her defense attorney moved to withdraw from the case, stating that he believed he had been “an unwitting tool in a fraud on this Court” due to potential deceit by his client. Two days later, U.S. District Judge Sidney Fitzwater vacated his order extending Ms. Carpenter’s reporting date, and ordered her arrested.
The 60-month sentence handed down will be served consecutive to the 41-month sentence handed down by Judge Fitzwater in the wire fraud case.
In that case, Ms. Carpenter pleaded guilty to embezzling money from a property management company where she worked. She admitted she fraudulently issued at least $133,000 in checks payable to herself, $157,000 in checks payable to a fictitious company she created, and used company money to pay off personal accounts with JC Penny, DirectTV, TXU Energy, and Verizon, resulting in more than $372,000 of losses to the property management company.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Dallas Field Office investigated both the wire fraud case and the obstruction case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Stokes prosecuted both cases.
