Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.Tanya Murph ripped off taxpayers to the tune of about $19,000 by pretending to provide day care for a relative who didn't live in Nebraska.
Now Murph will get a different form of baby-sitting: prison.
On Monday, Douglas County District Judge Peter Bataillon sentenced Murph to 20 months to 30 months in prison on welfare fraud and theft charges.
In doing so, Bataillon resisted Murph's pleas to be put on probation. Murph, 52, who has 10 children, had asked the judge to give her a chance, noting that she still has three children at home.
She said she didn't want her children to suffer because of her actions.
Bataillon didn't budge.
"One of the things you've got to be as a mother is an example for your children," he said. "That hasn't been the best here."
Authorities allege Murph and her nephew Adonus Marshall engaged in a scheme to steal government child care assistance by claiming that Marshall's daughter needed day care while Marshall worked a minimum-wage job.
Slight problem: Marshall's daughter was living in Colorado with her grandmother the entire time.
Over a year and a half, Murph billed Nebraska Health and Human Services anywhere from 45 hours to 54 hours a week for the girl's care. Total haul: Murph got about $18,900 and Marshall got about $6,700, according to HHS investigative documents.
Marshall, 33, was sentenced in June to 18 months to 24 months in prison — a term that is cut in half under state law.
Under sentencing guidelines, Murph, 52, must serve 10 months before she is eligible for parole. Her attorney, Tom Monaghan, said she has lost her job working in health care for the elderly.
Murph apologized to the judge, to HHS and to her children for her actions.
"I didn't realize I would jeopardize my family as much as I have," she said.
Bataillon said he spent an "awful lot" of time considering what to do with Murph. The judge granted Monaghan's request that Murph be allowed to wait until Monday to start serving her sentence.
But in the end, he said, probation wasn't an option.
"The problem with this case — this wasn't a mistake," Bataillon said. "This went on for months. You knew what you were doing. You had the foresight to understand that you were stealing from the government, which means you were stealing from all of us."
Contact the writer: 402-444-1275, todd.cooper@owh.com
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