Mary Wickersham, 77, has been sentenced to 15 months in prison and ordered to pay $243,000 in restitution for stealing money intended for the Miss Florida Scholarship Program over the course of seven years.
Wickersham pleaded guilty earlier this year.
Since 2002, Wickersham served as the Executive Director of the Miss Florida Scholarship Program.
The Miss Florida Scholarship Program offers educational and financial assistance to young women across the state.
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In 2011, Wickersham formed a Florida corporation named “Miss Florida LLC” and used it to open a bank account under the same name.
She did so without the knowledge or consent of the Miss Florida Scholarship Program.
Wickersham then redirected hundreds of thousands of dollars into the Miss Florida LLC bank account, which she controlled, by using her position as Executive Director to solicit donations from the program’s recurring business sponsors and donors, all while representing that those monies would be used to fund scholarships for the Miss Florida Program women.
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According to the Department of Justice, Wickersham used the money for her personal use and gain.
She left the position in 2018, after which new leadership began to discover financial irregularities. An investigation followed, and Wickersham was eventually arrested last year.
U.S. Attorney Markenzy Lapointe for the Southern District of Florida and Inspector in Charge Juan A. Vargas of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), Miami Division, announced the sentence imposed by U.S. District Judge Roy K. Altman.
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