Reported by Jesus Jiménez

In her role as an operations manager at an Amazon warehouse in Georgia, Kayricka Wortham had the authority to approve new vendors and their invoices.

But during her time there, federal prosecutors said, she used that power in another endeavor: Running a scheme by which $9.4 million was stolen from the company — money that, in part, Ms. Wortham used to buy a nearly $1 million home nearby, along with luxury cars, including a Tesla and a Lamborghini.

On Wednesday, Ms. Wortham, 32, was sentenced by a federal judge in Atlanta to 16 years in prison after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in a plot that involved six other people, according to court documents.

Ms. Wortham, who was charged in September 2022 and pleaded guilty in November, was also ordered to pay more than $9.4 million in restitution to Amazon, and her time in prison will be followed by three years of supervised release, the United States Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Georgia said in a statement on Wednesday. The home that Ms. Wortham bought with the stolen money, along with several luxury vehicles, have been seized, prosecutors said.

Ryan K. Buchanan, a federal prosecutor for the Northern District of Georgia, said in a statement on Wednesday that Ms. Wortham had “abused her position of trust at Amazon to steal.” 

Read full report: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/06/us/amazon-manager-scheme-sentencing-atlanta.html?searchResultPosition=1