A woman who forged checks to steal more than $700,000 from her elderly mother in Lewistown, Montana, while purporting to serve as her caregiver was sentenced to four and one-half years in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release. The defendant, Roxanna Rae Lewis-Stella, 60, of Billings, pleaded guilty in January to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. The court also ordered Lewis-Stella to pay $725,145 restitution. The government alleged that from November 2021 to July 2023, Lewis-Stella, under the guise of serving as caregiver for her mother, forged approximately 70 of her mother’s checks to steal her fortune.
In one instance, Lewis-Stella attempted to cash a forged check for $500,000. Lewis-Stella also reused checks by altering numbers and depositing them twice. To conceal her crimes, Lewis-Stella called the banks and impersonated her mother and intercepted mailed bank statements before her mother could see them. In addition, Lewis-Stella stole and pawned a 100-ounce silver bar from her mother, used her father’s credit cards after his death to accumulate $14,000 in charges for her personal expenses and stole and forged a $12,505 life insurance check written to her husband’s son. Lewis-Stella used the money for clothes, travel, entertainment, restaurants, online shopping, cosmetic procedures and tattoos. In addition, the government alleged that Lewis-Stella’s mother was a vulnerable victim because of her advanced age and because she relied almost entirely on her daughter for care. After the thefts were discovered, Lewis-Stella’s mother was forced to sell her home and move into an assisted living facility.
