An Atlanta woman involved in a sprawling fraud operation that stole nearly $10 million from Amazon was sentenced Wednesday to more than 16 years in federal prison, the Justice Department said.
Brittany Hudson received a sentence of 16 years and three months, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia, after prosecutors said she and her partner exploited a business relationship with Amazon to siphon money from the e-commerce company.
A jury convicted Hudson in March on 30 felony counts, including wire fraud, money laundering, conspiracy-related charges and one count tied to forging the signature of a federal judge.
“Hudson and her partner engineered a massive fraud scheme against Amazon, stealing nearly $10 million in just a few months,” US Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg said.
“Hudson then showed utter contempt for the law by forging a federal judge’s signature in a failed effort to defraud another company while out on bond. Today’s significant sentence, which must be served without the possibility of parole, holds her accountable for her crime spree.”
Prosecutors said Hudson and her partner, Kayricka Wortham, carried out the Amazon scheme between January and June 2022 by creating fake vendors and fraudulent invoices inside Amazon’s vendor system.
Wortham and another Amazon-based co-conspirator approved the sham vendor accounts, giving the group the ability to submit invoices for payment.
Hudson and Wortham went on to file more than 1,000 fabricated invoices, falsely claiming the bogus vendors had supplied Amazon with goods and services. Wortham approved the invoices, prompting Amazon to send about $9.4 million to bank accounts controlled by Wortham, Hudson and their co-conspirators.
Hudson and Wortham used the fraudulent funds to buy expensive real estate, including a nearly $1 million home in Smyrna, and luxury vehicles, including a 2019 Lamborghini Urus, a 2021 Dodge Durango, a 2022 Tesla Model X, a 2018 Porsche Panamera, and a Kawasaki ZX636 motorcycle.
The two faced federal fraud charges related to the scheme in September 2022. While they were out on bond, they attempted to defraud a franchising company by entering into an agreement to open a hookah lounge in Midtown Atlanta and falsely claimed their criminal charges had been dismissed.
Those actions resulted in the revocation of their pretrial release.
To support that claim, they emailed counterfeit court documents that contained the forged signatures of former Chief US District Judge Timothy C. Batten, Sr. and Cobb County Magistrate Judge Norman L. Barnett, who was a prosecutor in the case.
Hudson also emailed fake financial statements with inflated account balances to secure the deal.
“The sentencing in this case brings a brazen fraud operation to its inevitable conclusion — years behind bars for the criminals involved,” said Rob Donovan, special agent in charge of the US Secret Service Atlanta Field Office.
“Our office remains steadfast in our commitment to uncover fraud, protect victims and work with our partners at the US Attorney’s Office to bring criminals like this to justice.”
In addition to her prison sentence, Hudson was ordered to pay $9,469,731 in restitution to Amazon, while the court entered a forfeiture money judgment of $7,859,136 and ordered Hudson to forfeit her residence in Smyrna and money seized from her bank account as fraudulent proceeds of her scheme.
Wortham was sentenced to 16 years in prison in June 2023 and was sentenced to an additional year in March 2026 after pleading guilty to forging the signature of a federal judge.
She was also ordered to pay $9,469,731 in restitution and forfeited over $3 million, the Smyrna home and vehicles.
