Crime
Prosecutors say the 70-year-old woman tried to cash a six-figure check a month after her arrest.
A Brockton woman has pleaded guilty in Boston federal court to stealing a nearly $932,000 United States Treasury tax refund check intended for a New York health care company, officials announced.
Lana Ruel, 70, pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of theft of government funds, months after her December 2025 arrest, according to a statement from Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Leah Foley’s office.
Prosecutors said Ruel attempted to deposit a U.S. Treasury tax refund check for $931,745.28 that had been issued to a Brooklyn-based health care company.
Investigators later learned the company had applied for Employee Retention Credit refunds and expected to receive six checks from the IRS. The company received only five of those checks, and the missing refund was the same check Ruel attempted to deposit, according to court records.
Authorities said Ruel had incorporated a Massachusetts company and opened a bank account in the name of the health care company before attempting to deposit the check.
Ruel’s bank account was frozen after the attempted deposit. She then called the bank and said she could “explain what the check was, where it came from, and what it’s for,” according to court documents.
Ruel later told investigators she had opened the account to provide health care consulting services. She also claimed a person she met on an online dating site two years prior mailed her the Treasury check, which she said she planned to use to launch the business, according to court records.
“There is probable cause to believe that Ruel lied during our interview,” a detective wrote in the criminal complaint, alleging that Ruel did not operate a home care consulting business and instead intended to send the money to the individual she met online.
Prosecutors said the alleged scheme extended beyond the stolen refund check.
Over a two-year period, Ruel created four additional Massachusetts companies, which have since been closed, that “did not have a legitimate business purpose,” Foley’s office said. For one company, Ruel opened an account at about 10 different banks.
According to prosecutors, Ruel received wire transfers into some of those accounts before transferring the money elsewhere or making cash withdrawals.
In one example, a victim company wired $596,145.66 to an account associated with L&E Global in January 2025. Ruel moved most of the money among other L&E Global accounts before transferring much of it to cryptocurrency accounts, according to court documents.
Ruel also admitted that in January — one month after her arrest in the Treasury check case — she obtained and attempted to cash a $157,707.74 check payable that had been issued by another victim agency, court records show.
Ruel’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday evening.
She is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 1. The charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, up to three years of supervised release, and a $250,000 fine, according to Foley’s office.
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