PHOENIX – Attorney General Mayes today announced that Bridget C. O’Brien was sentenced yesterday in Maricopa County Superior Court to 2 years in prison to be followed by 3 years of probation, for her role in a multimillion-dollar fraud against the federal government’s Small Business Administration (SBA). Defendant O’Brien was also ordered to pay the SBA $1,273,794.95 in restitution.
“My office is committed to holding fraudsters accountable and protecting the interests of Arizona taxpayers,” said Attorney General Mayes. “This egregious misuse of taxpayer funds for lavish personal expenses is unacceptable and my office will continue to investigate and prosecute individuals who engage in fraud.”
The Arizona Attorney General’s investigation into O’Brien and her companies had developed evidence that O’Brien applied for $2.9 million in SBA loans between March 202 and January 2021, with applications for these twenty-three loans containing gross material misrepresentations. These material misrepresentations allowed O’Brien’s shell companies, holding companies, and real estate ventures to obtain loan funds which they would not have otherwise been awarded if the applications were completed honestly.
A particularly glaring misuse of funds occurred when multiple payments from O’Brien’s SBA funded bank account were made to a real estate title agency as part of the purchase of a $1.9 million luxury home in Phoenix. In addition to the payments on the home, the loan funds were also used for many other unauthorized personal expenses including, but not limited to: personal dining, travel, clothing, home furniture, rent payments to O’Brien’s rental home, tuition payment, as well as volleyball lessons for O’Brien’s child.
The Arizona Attorney General prosecutor on this case was Humberto Preciado III and the primary investigator was Medicaid Fraud Control Unit Special Agent Roy Garrison. This case was handled by the Arizona Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit.
