Minnesota Woman Sentenced to 51 Months for $2.7M Embezzlement to Fund Gambling Habit

Minnesota Woman Sentenced to 51 Months for $2.7M Embezzlement to Fund Gambling Habit

Minneapolis — A Minnesota woman has been sentenced to more than four years in federal prison for embezzling over $2.7 million from her employer to bankroll an online gambling addiction, federal prosecutors announced this week.

Destiny McKayla Combs, 37, was ordered to serve 51 months in prison and three years of supervised release after pleading guilty to wire fraud.

Investigation

The case was investigated by the United States Secret Service and the Minnesota Commerce Fraud Bureau. Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew C. Murphy prosecuted the case.

Fraud Scheme

Combs spent nearly a decade as the accounting manager of a Twin Cities surrogacy agency and its affiliated law firm, where she had sole responsibility for financial records and transactions. Prosecutors said that from February 2019 through June 2023, she used her personal American Express card to gamble online, then covered the charges with company funds.

In total, she made about 292 unauthorized payments worth $2,723,025, disguising the transactions as legitimate business expenses. Court filings show she was trusted to such an extent that the agency’s owner had been preparing to sell her the business in 2022, before she abruptly resigned and moved to Florida in 2023 as the fraud was coming to light.

Sentencing Factors

At sentencing, U.S. District Judge John M. Gerrard pointed to the magnitude of the theft and to Combs’s repeated violations of pretrial supervision. While awaiting trial, she lied to her probation officer and traveled without authorization to New York, Miami, and Las Vegas. Gerrard called her Las Vegas trip a “flagrant violation” of court restrictions.

Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph H. Thompson said Combs “treated her workplace like her own personal slot machine,” describing the case as part of a “disturbing wave of fraud sweeping across Minnesota.”

MinneapoliMedia