Woman who fraudulently used state grant monies sentenced to probation and home confinement

Press Release

Submitted invoices for trainings that never happened - instead moved to Italy

Tacoma - The former Executive Director of the Washington Coalition of Crime Victim Advocates (WCCVA) was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Tacoma to five years of probation and six months of home confinement for two counts of wire fraud. Cody Benson, formerly of Olympia, Washington was convicted in January following a six-day jury trial. Benson was indicted in July 2021 for her scheme to falsely claim Washington State public grant funding for work that was never done. At the sentencing hearing U.S. District Judge Benjamin H. Settle noted that the crime was serious in that the defendant "was drawing a salary while doing little work for an extended time" and that "taxpayers did not get the benefits" of the grant funds meant for training crime-victim advocates.

"This defendant was supposed to do critical work - training advocates for crime victims. Instead, she falsified documents to make it appear work was being done, and moved halfway around the world to Italy," said U.S. Attorney Gorman. "It is remarkable that she believed such conduct would not be scrutinized and prosecuted."

According to records filed in the case, Benson was the head of an Olympia-based non-profit organization that was tasked with training advocates to assist crime victims. In 2013, the legislature appropriated money for this work with a grant administered through the Washington State Attorney General's Office. Between 2015 and 2017, Benson submitted fraudulent invoices for reimbursement under the grant. She submitted bills for training events that were never held or supplies that were never purchased. In early 2016, she moved away to Italy, yet in the ensuing years, she repeatedly told representatives of the Attorney General's Office that she was in Washington State doing various outreach and other work. Those representations were false.

By the end of the scheme, WCCVA had only two employees: Benson and her son. The Washington State Attorney General's Office became concerned about WCCVA's performance under the grant in early 2018 and began investigating. Benson returned just over $50,000 to the state, but other funds were not recovered. The grant payments ceased, and WCCVA is defunct.

In all, prosecutors argued that WCCVA obtained almost $180,000 from Benson's false invoices, and that Benson herself obtained approximately $257,000 in net salary and other benefits such as health insurance, retirement plan contributions, and health reimbursement account contributions during the fraudulent scheme.

The case was investigated by the FBI. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Philip Kopczynski and Yunah Chung.

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Updated July 17, 2024