From Cinderella prom to prison cell —How a New Jersey mom fell from grace
The U.S. Attorney's Office said Harris falsely claimed that her childcare business had more employees and a higher payroll than it actually had to receive a Paycheck Protection Program loan.
A New Jersey mom who spent more than $27,000 to create a Cinderella-style castle for her daughter’s prom two years ago, will be spending a year in a federal prison.
Treva Harris, 50, of Medford, was sentenced to 12 months and one day for a pandemic-relief fraud scheme amounting to more than a half a million dollars, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has announced.
While authorities didn’t suggest the fraud proceeds paid for the lavish prom, Harris pleaded guilty last October to one count of bank fraud.
In 2020, Harris obtained pandemic relief loans backed by the U.S. Small Business Administration including two loans for a childcare business, Child Prodigy Education Center, or CPEC.
The first was an Economic Injury Disaster Loan that disbursed about $514,900 to Harris. She accurately represented that her childcare business had only three employees with a gross income of $165,907 for the past 12 months, and $113,420 in “cost of goods sold” - meaning payroll.
But just two months later, she submitted a separate Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP, loan application for the childcare business, including fabricated IRS documentation, in which she falsely claimed that the business had 27 employees with a monthly payroll of $214,000, or $2,568,000 annually.
As a result, she received a $535,000 loan, much of which she misspent on personal luxury retail purchases, cash withdrawals, and checks written to her boyfriend’s business, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
In addition to the prison sentence, Harris is ordered to serve three years of supervised release and pay $535,000 in restitution, a $7,500 fine, and a $100 special assessment.
Harris did not return a phone message from The Inquirer Sunday.
The case may have flown under the radar except for a prom extravaganza that she rolled out for everyone to see on Instagram that shined a spotlight on her opulent lifestyle.
The Cinderella theme looked like a glitzy backdrop for Hollywood’s rich and famous.
Harris had a two-story castle built in a parking lot in the 4900 block of Lancaster Avenue. The set was decorated with chandeliers, 20-foot-long drapes, furniture, and carpeted sidewalks. Harris owns a number of businesses (including Millionaire Minds Childcare Academy, which is adjacent to the lot).
At the time, she told The Inquirer that the castle alone cost $27,500 and took workers about a month to build.
Harris produced a video of the send-off for her daughter, Azar. In it, Harris was a fairy godmother who waved a wand over Azar in tattered clothing. Then, a screen door opened and Azar, in a champagne strapless satin gown, walked down a flower-filled runway. Confetti fluttered down as the audience roared in glee.
Her friends called her “Princess Azar.”
“Every girl deserves to be cherished and treated like royalty,” Harris wrote on social media. “When we shower our daughters with love and teach them their worth, they grow up knowing they deserve to be respected, valued and adored – and they won’t settle for anything less.”
She told The Inquirer that the financial sacrifice was worth it. “When we become adults, life gets super hard,” she said. “I do what I can for [my kids] while they’re younger. When they get older, I don’t have so much control over their happiness. I have a little bit of control now. So I do everything in my power to make sure that my kids are happy.”
At the time, Harris told The Inquirer she could afford it.
Her LinkedIn account lists her as founder and CEO of Back 2 Healthy HomeCare — a licensed Pennsylvania home care agency contracted with PA Health & Wellness Community HealthChoices. Her Facebook profile lists her as a Pennsylvania real estate agent and a “nationwide commercial finance agent.”
Azar’s prom wasn’t the first time Harris basked in the spotlight. Her 2011 wedding cost more than $100,000 and also had a Cinderella theme. And in 2023 for her son’s prom, she wrapped the side of a West Philly house she owns with a 30-foot image of him, embellished with orange balloons and flowers.
In LinkedIn, she sums up her philosophy:
“I didn’t wait for someone to open a door,” she wrote. “I built the door - and then I built the whole house.”
