Former TV anchor Stephanie Hockridge has been sentenced to ten years in jail following her conviction for a multi million dollar Covid fraud scheme.

Hockridge, 42, will serve out her sentence in the same soft-touch penitentiary which houses sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, the New York Post reports.

Hockridge is due to report to Federal Prison Camp Bryan in Texas on December 30. 

She has also been ordered to pay $64 million in restitution for the fraudulent loans she obtained during the pandemic.

The ex KNXV-TV anchor was facing the prospect of up to 20 years in jail after a jury found her guilty of of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Prosecutors said she orchestrated a vast scheme to exploit the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) during the height of Covid which she used to fund the purchase of luxury beachfront homes.

Damning pictures which emerged also showed her posing in a bathtub flashing wadges of cash 

The sentence marks a dramatic fall from grace for the Emmy-nominated journalist who once graced magazine covers as 'Arizona's Favorite Newscaster.'

But behind the studio lights and on-air smiles, federal prosecutors said Hockridge was running a Covid cash-grab empire alongside her husband, fintech founder Nathan Reis, 46.

Reis was convicted of the same charge earlier this year and is due to be sentenced in November. 

The US government's case centered on Blueacorn, the fintech firm Hockridge co-founded with Reis in April 2020 just weeks after leaving her anchor job at ABC15.

The company claimed to help small businesses navigate the PPP loan process, a lifeline created by Congress to keep workers employed during the Covid crisis.

In reality, investigators say Blueacorn became a fraud factory.

According to a congressional subcommittee, the company processed over $12.5 billion in loans and pocketed up to $300 million for its ownership group, including Hockridge, while spending virtually nothing on fraud prevention.

While many small businesses struggled to survive during the pandemic, Hockridge and her husband were living large, filming videos with bricks of cash, flaunting Rolex watches, and vacationing on the balconies of tropical locales.

Who the f*** cares,' Hockridge allegedly said in one message about improperly rejected applicants. 'We're not the first bank to decline borrowers who deserve to be funded… They can go elsewhere.'

 Another text cited by prosecutors reportedly described her as 'the MVP' of the operation.

According to court filings, Hockridge and her husband submitted fraudulent PPP applications for themselves, including one claiming Reis was both African American and a military veteran - both lies.

The couple received at least $300,000 in personal PPP funds.

They also charged borrowers illegal 'success fees,' violating SBA rules, and even struck kickback deals with banks, collecting percentages of loans that were funded, prosecutors alleged.

Blueacorn's practices were so brazen that Congress launched a formal investigation, revealing that while the company collected over $1 billion in taxpayer-funded processing fees, it spent only $8.6 million on fraud prevention - less than 1 percent of its intake.

One congressional report summarized the company's internal directive succinctly: Speed over accuracy.

Some employees, with zero financial training, were reportedly processing hundreds of loans in under 30 seconds each.

'This was not about helping small businesses,' a federal official close to the investigation said. 'It was about siphoning off a national crisis for personal gain.'

Hockridge transformation from trusted journalist to convicted felon has gripped Arizona's media community.

She spent seven years as a respected anchor for KNXV-TV, and previously worked for CBS News Radio in London.

During the trial, federal attorneys introduced a superseding indictment alleging that Hockridge and her husband fabricated payroll records, tax documents, and bank statements. 

In one application, the couple claimed to own an Amazon business generating six figures. 

Another loan was issued to a nonexistent company they claimed had multiple employees.

The couple allegedly rerouted money through a chain of bank accounts, using interstate wires to disguise their tracks.

'Nathan Reis and Stephanie Hockridge… knowingly devised and intended to devise the scheme to defraud,' the indictment states.

'To obtain money and property by means of materially false and fraudulent pretenses.'

At the heart of the prosecution's case was an alleged attitude of impunity. 

Prosecutors said Hockridge once described the PPP program as '$100 billion of free money'.