Former Home Depot employee sentenced for $4M gift card theft to fund gambling habit

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Former Home Depot employee sentenced for $4M gift card theft to fund gambling habit. Several Home Depot gift cards displayed on a wooden counter inside a store, with shelves of merchandise blurred in the background.

A former House Depot worker is headed to federal jail after prosecutors say she orchestrated a multimillion-dollar gift card scheme and spent a lot of the cash on playing.

Federal authorities in Atlanta say 53-year-old Felecia Ingram used her job inside the corporate’s Retailer Help Middle to quietly siphon off 1000’s of reward playing cards over roughly 16 months, starting in March 2020. Ingram labored as a present card gross sales affiliate, a task that gave her entry to the methods and stock she would later exploit.

Felecia Ingram has been sentenced to greater than three years in jail for stealing over $4 million in reward playing cards from The House Depot.https://t.co/Kxx3oaSc2r pic.twitter.com/paHCLReopf

— US Lawyer NDGA (@NDGAnews) February 26, 2026

Investigators say she took about 8,325 bodily reward playing cards, loading up a complete worth of roughly $4.08 million.

In response to court docket information, Ingram activated the playing cards herself. Prosecutors say she used her firm pc credentials to generate pretend inside orders, making it seem the playing cards had been tied to official company occasions. After activating the playing cards, she deleted the sham orders in an effort to cowl her tracks. Authorities say she then resold the activated playing cards on the black marketplace for money.

Exploiting her place for private acquire, this legal thought she might use her data of her employer’s enterprise practices to hide a multi-million-dollar fraud scheme.

Robert Donovan, Appearing Particular Agent in Cost of america Secret Service Atlanta Area Workplace

Prosecutors contend most of that cash went towards what they described as an “extravagant playing way of life.” They haven’t specified what sort of playing was concerned, however court docket filings state that the majority of the proceeds had been funneled into that exercise.

How the previous House Depot employee’s playing scheme unraveled

The operation continued for greater than a yr earlier than anybody caught on. It lastly got here to gentle when House Depot’s inside reward card staff noticed inconsistencies within the firm’s monetary information. These discrepancies triggered a deeper overview, which in the end led to a joint investigation by the U.S. Secret Service and the corporate.

Screenshot of a federal court document filed March 28, 2025, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta Division, showing a criminal information charging Felecia Ingram with one count of access device fraud related to stolen Home Depot gift cards, along with a forfeiture provision. — Federal court docket submitting expenses Felecia Ingram with entry machine fraud in House Depot reward card case.

The investigation uncovered the fraudulent inside orders and traced the exercise again to Ingram, in keeping with prosecutors.

On Thursday (February 26), Senior U.S. District Decide Thomas W. Thrash Jr. sentenced Ingram to a few years and one month in federal jail. She may also serve three years of supervised launch as soon as she completes her sentence. As well as, the court docket ordered her to repay practically $3.95 million to The House Depot. Ingram pleaded responsible in Could 2025 to 1 depend of entry machine fraud.

In court docket filings, prosecutors argued that Ingram intentionally used her familiarity with firm methods to each perform and conceal the theft. “Whereas employed at The House Depot, the defendant abused the belief positioned in her and stole a staggering $4 million from the corporate,” the U.S. legal professional’s workplace stated in a press launch.

The prosecution is one in all a number of main fraud circumstances introduced this yr by the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace for the Northern District of Georgia. Officers say this case has drawn specific discover due to the size of the theft and the hyperlink prosecutors made between the stolen funds and playing.

Featured picture: Grok

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