Stephanie Hockridge, a former television anchor and entrepreneur, has been sentenced to a decade in prison for her involvement in a fraudulent COVID-19 relief scheme. The 42-year-old was convicted in a Texas federal court and ordered to pay nearly $64 million in restitution for her role in securing fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans during the pandemic’s peak, according to the Justice Department.
Hockridge, who was found guilty of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in June, is set to begin her prison term on December 30. She will serve her sentence at the Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas, a minimum-security facility that also houses high-profile inmates such as Ghislaine Maxwell, Elizabeth Holmes, and Jen Shah.
In 2020, Hockridge and her husband, Nathan Reis, established a lending-services company named Blueacorn. The couple claimed that their company was designed to assist small businesses in securing federal PPP loans during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, prosecutors argued that the Scottsdale-based firm charged borrowers kickbacks based on a percentage of the funds received and submitted applications to the US Small Business Administration, which ran the PPP program, filled with fraudulent information.
One such application reportedly included false claims by Reis that he was a veteran and an African American. In total, the couple processed more than $63 million in fraudulent PPP loans, according to the Department of Justice. The PPP was an $800 billion federal loan initiative launched in 2020 to help small businesses keep workers employed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Investigators alleged that the couple used the proceeds for personal enrichment.
Hockridge, a former anchor at KNXV-TV, defended her actions as a “sincere effort to support small businesses” during a time of “unprecedented need.” However, a congressional report found that Blueacorn routinely failed to properly vet applicants and charged illegal “success fees” to borrowers, violating Small Business Administration rules. The report also detailed how Blueacorn’s leadership instructed staff to prioritize speed over accuracy.
Reis accepted a plea deal in August and is set to be sentenced in December. Hockridge, who spent seven years as an anchor at KNXV-TV, the ABC affiliate in Phoenix, and previously worked as a reporter for CBS News Radio in London, was nominated for an Emmy and named “Favorite Newscaster” by Arizona Foothills Magazine. Her conviction marks one of the highest-profile PPP fraud cases to date involving a public figure.