Aleshea McDowell, Child Care Fraud, Illinois 2024

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Aleshea McDowell Sentenced to 4 Years for Child Care Fraud, Chicago IL, 2024

A Chicago-area woman has been sentenced to four years in federal prison for scheming to fraudulently obtain over $3.3 million in state subsidies for low-income families.

Aleshea McDowell, 44, owned several child care centers in the Chicago area, including A&A Kiddy Kollege Inc. in Calumet City, Ill., A&A Kiddy Kollege 2 in Calumet Park, Ill., and Kreative Kidz Academy Inc., Kreative Kidz Academy II Inc., and Kreative Kidz Academy III Inc. in Chicago.

From 2012 to 2020, McDowell schemed with directors of her centers and others to defraud the Illinois Department of Human Services’ Child Care Assistance Program by submitting applications containing false information, including fraudulent paystubs and income verification letters. In many instances, McDowell or the directors falsely represented that a parent was employed by one of McDowell’s child care centers to satisfy IDHS’s requirement that recipients of the funds either be in school or employed and earning less than a certain income threshold.

As a result of the scheme, McDowell and her co-schemers caused IDHS to pay McDowell’s child care centers over $3.3 million in subsidy payments for services purportedly provided to children who were not eligible to receive such benefits. McDowell spent some of the criminally derived money on a Bentley Bentayga and a house in Mokena, Ill.

McDowell pleaded guilty last year to a federal wire fraud charge. In addition to the prison sentence, U.S. District Judge Manish S. Shah ordered McDowell to pay restitution of $3,339,563.

Seven other defendants charged as part of the investigation also pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges. The case was announced by Morris Pasqual, Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, Robert W. ‘Wes’ Wheeler, Jr., Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Office of the FBI, Justin Campbell, Special Agent-in-Charge of the IRS Criminal Investigation Chicago Field Office, and Shantel R. Robinson, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Midwest Region of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Inspector General.

The government was represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kate McClelland and Brian Hayes.