ORLANDO, Fla. – Four family members have been sentenced for their involvement in a fraud ring involving theme-park tickets, the Department of Justice announced Friday.
Eileen Hightower, 50, was sentenced to three years and ten months in federal prison. Her children, Samuel Velasquez Jr., 26, and Sabrina Velasquez, 25, along with her niece, Jennifer Cancel, 28, were each sentenced to serve a term of three years’ imprisonment.
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The court also ordered all four to pay a total of $107,097.33 in restitution. Each previously pleaded guilty for their role in the access device fraud ring case.
According to court documents, the group had obtained counterfeit driver licenses and counterfeit credit cards encoded with stolen account information. The account numbers actually belonged to cardholders who were victimized by the scheme.
The counterfeit credit cards were used by Hightower and her family members to purchase Orlando-area theme park tickets at hotel ticket kiosks throughout central Florida. They then sold the fraudulently-obtained tickets to ticket resellers in Kissimmee.
Over a period of a few months, more than $100,000 in theme park tickets were fraudulently purchased and then resold.
The case was investigated by the United States Secret Service and the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.