ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) – A member of a secretive North Carolina church has been sentenced to 10 months of home confinement for taking part in an unemployment fraud scheme benefiting businesses with ties to the congregation.
Diane McKinny also received three years of probation at the federal court hearing Thursday. She pleaded guilty in May to making a fraudulent claim for unemployment benefits for workers at a company run by a minister at Word of Faith Fellowship in Spindale.
Prosecutors have said the company, Diverse Corporate Technologies, laid off employees in 2008 so they could collect unemployment benefits. But prosecutors say the employees continued to work at the company, with government money replacing their salaries.
McKinny was the fourth person to plead guilty in a probe of the scheme involving multiple businesses linked to the church.
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