MONROE, La. (AP) — A New Orleans man has been sentenced to nearly six years in prison for lying to the Federal Emergency Management Agency to get disaster benefits for a house he owned in north Louisiana.
Chad Lightfoot, 47, also was ordered to pay nearly $23,700 restitution and a $10,000 fine, Western District U.S. Attorney David Joseph said in a news release Friday.
Lightfoot was convicted in March and sentenced Wednesday in Monroe to six years and 11 months.
Evidence showed that after the government declared that flooding in Monroe was a disaster, he applied to FEMA for damage to a derelict vacant house he owned there, claiming falsely that it was his home.
Joseph said Lightfoot showed inspectors a Louisiana ID card with the Monroe address and submitted a phony cable bill as proof that he lived there. The supposed bill was from Cox Communications, but a company representative testified that Cox doesn’t operate in Monroe.