Disgraced ex-news anchor Stephanie Hockridge sentenced in massive COVID fraud scheme -- will be jailed with Ghislaine Max

https://nypost.com/2025/11/23/media/disgraced-ex-news-anchor-stephanie-hockridge-sentenced-in-massive-covid-fraud-scheme-will-be-jailed-with-ghislaine-maxwell/

Disgraced ex-news anchor Stephanie Hockridge sentenced in massive COVID fraud scheme — will be jailed with Ghislaine Maxwell

Disgraced ex-TV anchor Stephanie Hockridge will spend the next ten years behind bars for her role in a multi-million-dollar COVID fraud scheme – serving her time in the same cushy lockup as notorious sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.

The 42-year-old, a former Phoenix TV anchor turned entrepreneur, was sentenced in Texas federal court Friday and ordered to cough up nearly $64 million in restitution for the bogus Paycheck Protection Program loans she helped secure during the height of the pandemic, the Justice Department announced.
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Hockridge and her husband, Nathan Reis, founded a lending-services company called Blueacorn in 2020, which they claimed was designed to help small businesses secure federal Paycheck Protection Program loans at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But prosecutors said couple’s Scottsdale-based firm charged borrowers kickbacks based on percentage of the funds received — and submitted applications to the US Small Business Administration, which ran the PPP program, they knew where loaded with fraudulent information.
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