Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein is spending the next half-century behind bars, and Friday morning, his loyal right-hand woman was handed the maximum 10-year sentence for her part in the $1.4 billion scam.
Debra Villegas, COO of defunct law firm Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler, had pleaded guilty in June to federal charges connected with the scheme.
Villegas, 43, turned herself into authorities in April after she was charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering charges for forging legal settlement documents which Rothstein used to lure investors into his scam.
Villegas had originally pleaded not guilty before changing her plea, though prosecutors said she'd been cooperating with the government since last November, shortly before Rothstein's scam imploded.
Her lawyer had hoped that cooperation would earn her some leniency at Friday's sentencing, but no such luck. She'll now have to surrender to begin her sentence in January.
First a paralegal with the firm in the 1990s, Villegas rose to the prominent position of COO and became one of Rothstein's closest advisers, who he called his second-in-command. Rothstein had even bought her a $475,000 home and a Maserati, both of which she later forfeited.
At a hearing in June, she told a federal judge that she just wanted to help her boss and friend get out of trouble, and that Rothstein told her "it was a one-time thing."
Rothstein, 48, was sentenced over the summer to 50 years in prison for running the scheme that bilked investors of around $1.4 billion.
Villegas is the second person to be charged in the scheme.
