Ex-day-care operator gets more than 5 years on fraud charges
Tianna Edwards faces a separate involuntary-manslaughter trial in the death of a 7-year-old boy.
A FORMER day-care-center operator, who faces an involuntary-manslaughter trial in the 2012 death of a 7-year-old boy, was sentenced yesterday to five years, three months behind bars in a separate federal case for defrauding the state Department of Public Welfare of nearly $1.5 million.
Tianna Edwards, 32, opened two Tianna's Terrific Tots day-care centers: in 2008 on Germantown Avenue near Juniata Street in Nicetown, and in 2009 on Rising Sun Avenue near 13th Street in North Philly.
Because of her criminal history, she was ineligible to receive licenses to run the centers. To circumvent that, she forged her sister-in-law Nikita Smith's name as owner and operator.
From December 2008 to July 2012, Edwards received state and federal funds totaling $1,459,470 from DPW to provide subsidized child care to eligible parents. For her wrongdoing, she pleaded guilty to five counts of wire fraud.
While Edwards spent some of that money on day-care expenses, bank records showed that from September 2008 to September 2012 she spent more than $135,000 on retail, travel and entertainment expenses, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joan Burnes wrote in a sentencing memorandum.
And SugarHouse Casino records showed that from January 2011 to January 2013, Edwards spent more than 490 hours at the casino, gambling more than $1.5 million, with a net loss of $206,000, Burnes wrote.
Edwards allegedly was at SugarHouse on June 29, 2012, when Isear Jeffcoat, 7, a boy in the Rising Sun day-care center, drowned in a murky backyard pool at the East Oak Lane home of Emma Watson, Edwards' mother. Center workers had taken the kids there.
Edwards faces a Dec. 18 Common Pleas trial in Isear's death.
In the federal case, U.S. District Judge Juan Sanchez agreed with Burnes that Edwards deserved a 63-month sentence, the top of the advisory guideline range. He also ordered Edwards to pay $1.46 million in restitution to DPW.
Edwards' past convictions include two retail thefts in Montgomery County, false-identification and firearms-possession convictions in Delaware County, and insurance fraud in Philadelphia.
Yesterday, she told the judge: "I have come to realize I was an instant-gratification person [who]chose not to play by the rules. . . . I am no longer that person."
DPW had closed the Germantown Avenue day-care center in April 2012 for safety issues. Shortly after Isear drowned, the Rising Sun location was shuttered.