GREENFIELD — An Idaho woman who pleaded guilty on Monday to her role in defrauding Orange out of $68,000 is scheduled to be sentenced on Friday, May 29.
Jennifer Grasmick, 52, appeared remotely in Franklin County Superior Court to change her plea on one count of larceny over $1,200. Judge Michael Callan gave her a week to provide the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office with documentation proving her alleged dire financial situation and inability to pay restitution.
“We’ll come back on that Friday [and] we’ll take care of the sentencing,” Callan said.
Assistant District Attorney Nicholas Atallah explained that the fraud case originated in three emails sent to Orange Town Hall on July 6, 7 and 11 of 2023. They included fake invoices for $68,000 for the legitimate North Main Street reconstruction project. The payment was approved by the town’s then-highway superintendent and the Selectboard.
Atallah said the town accountant, upon receiving notice that the payment was approved, realized the town did not have a W-9 form or workers’ compensation insurance information on file for Jennifer Grasmick and inquired in a letter to the Nampa, Idaho, address listed on the invoice. Once Orange received the information, a check was sent to the same address in Idaho.
“That check was then deposited in the account under the name of the defendant on Aug. 21 … at a branch of Chase [Bank] in Caldwell, Idaho, which is the town just next to Nampa, Idaho,” Atallah said. “Of that $68,000, there were then two wire transfers of $25,000 on Aug. 24 and Aug. 28 from that account to [the cryptocurrency exchange] Coinbase Inc.”
Atallah noted that the money was used to purchase an equivalent amount of Bitcoin that was then sent elsewhere. He mentioned there was then a third wire transfer — of $17,925 on Aug. 31 — to a limited liability company in Idaho. The three transfers came with $25 fees, totaling $68,000.
“We don’t have evidence money ever came back to Ms. Grasmick’s account,” Atallah said, “but the basis of this charge is the filling out of those forms and sending them to the town of Orange to help professionally defraud it, ultimately [leading] to the check being sent and the money being taken from the town of Orange.
“The commonwealth also recognizes … that we don’t have any evidence to say Ms. Grasmick was the ringleader of this operation,” he continued. “We don’t have any connection between her and the invoice. We don’t have any connection of her receiving the funds, ultimately.”
The prosecutor said evidence points to foreign actors sending a fraudulent invoice and using Grasmick as a “money mule.”
“Because the town of Orange, of course, never would have sent a check overseas,” Atallah said. “So they need someone domestically in order to receive the funds initially, to send it overseas.”
The maximum penalty is five years in state prison or 2½ years in a house of correction. Atallah suggested probation and acknowledged that he is not certain that incarceration is warranted, as this is Grasmick’s first run-in with the law. He also mentioned that she was arrested and detained for 18 days before it was realized that her health issues, including diabetes and high blood pressure, made it impossible to transfer her to Massachusetts.
In a victim impact statement, Orange Town Administrator Matthew Fortier told Callan about the devastating financial impact this scam has had on Orange.
“The town of Orange struggles financially,” he said. “This fraud against the town of Orange put a tremendous burden on, and seriously impacted, the taxpayers.”
Orange was defrauded out of $338,000 in 2023. Fortier had said in May 2024 that the initial number was more than $800,000, “but the banks were able to stop some of those payments.” The fraud nearly led to the town closing its two libraries to save money.
Fortier, who took over as town administrator in August 2023, has said that he has since increased checks and balances and changed certain protocols to ensure this type of fraud does not happen again. The theft of the other $270,000 remains under investigation.
Attending Monday’s court hearing with Orange Police Chief James Sullivan, Fortier said he wants full restitution and the maximum sentence allowed by law.
Grasmick told Callan she worked at Boise State University until 2023, when she was laid off. She said she now relies on friends and family for financial support. Defense attorney Joseph Pacella said his client had to borrow $5,000 for bail and additional money to pay for his services.
He also said Grasmick is a divorced grandmother of five and was suckered into a romance scam with a man who pretended to be a caring and concerned love interest.
“She was ill, virtually homebound and subject to this romance scheme,” Pacella said.
That person, he explained, posed as a Toronto project manager who initiated a relationship via Facebook in January 2023 and offered flattery and a story of how he needed to care for his mother. He convinced her that his work sent him to Israel and that he became a fraud victim, and asked for her help in collecting money he was owed for a project. She assisted him, not knowing the story was made-up.
“[Grasmick] had nothing to do with the thought process of this scheme,” he said, adding that his client followed the man’s instructions.
Pacella is requesting the case be continued without a finding, meaning Grasmick would remain free unless arrested on a separate charge within a certain amount of time. He explained that the basis of his request is that his client now lives with a gun enthusiast who financially supports her, and a felon status would make it challenging to live in a household with guns, as convicted felons are prohibited from possessing firearms. Pacella said the man has “a whole lot of guns, and is used to keeping them scattered throughout his home in a way that’s legal in Idaho.”
Pacella described his client as a trusting, vulnerable person who is embarrassed by this situation.
“It’s a sad situation she finds herself in,” he said. “This is an incredible wake-up call for her.”
