A Forsyth woman was sentenced Thursday to one year and nine months in federal prison for fraudulently obtaining hundreds of thousands of dollars in government anti-drug grant funds, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.
Jessica Regas, 62, got the money through falsifying government grant applications. U.S. Attorney Sally Yates said she applied for a federal grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) beginning in 2004 under the guise of the business she ran with her husband, Georgia Martial Arts Foundation.
The grant is intended to, among other things, help reduce substance abuse in young people.
Yates’ office said as a requirement of the grant, the recipient must coordinate group members from at least 12 community sectors such as law enforcement or religious organizations and “run coalition meetings that focused on substance abuse among youth, maintain minutes from those meetings and certify that the grantee had obtained non-federal funding.”
Regas listed in her grant applications the Georgia Martial Arts Center as recipient for the “Drug Free Forsyth Coalition,” stating the coalition met all the requirements, though in reality it hardly meet any, according to Yates.
Regas got a grant on behalf of the Georgia Martial Arts Foundation yearly until 2013 up to about $125,000 a year, even two years after the Georgia Martial Arts Foundation ceased to exist.
In addition to prison time, Regas faces three years of supervised release and a restitution order of $600,000.
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