A Shreveport woman, convicted earlier this month of stealing almost $80,000 from her employer in 2018, was sentenced Thursday, December 17, 2020 in Caddo District Court.

Laquanisha Leroycia McCoy, age 24, was sentenced to 15 years in prison at hard labor by District Judge Charles Tutt. McCoy was convicted in Judge Tutt’s court December 2, 2020.

McCoy was employed at a local family-owned small business from March 2017 to June 2018.  In June 2018 the business received a call from its credit card processing company saying that eight fraudulent refunds were drawn on the business’s account, totaling $78,933.03.  Further investigation showed that all eight transactions went into McCoy’s bank account.

A factor in sentencing was that, after conviction, McCoy submitted several letters written on her behalf, asking for mercy.  Some of them were from family members or other acquaintances and were real. But others were purported to be written by prominent members of the community who asked for leniency, attested to her good character, doubted whether she was really guilty, suggested that she was a good candidate to be a nurse anesthetist and said she intended to be in the U.S. Air Force. The purported writers of the letters included McCoy’s high school principal, a high school teacher, a college professor, a past work supervisor and a military recruiter. But when called to verify that the letters were genuine, those people said that the letters were forgeries and that they did not write letters for McCoy. The past supervisor added that she would not have been willing to write a letter on McCoy’s behalf as McCoy had been fired for theft.

Prosecutors were Assistant District Attorneys William Gaskins and Brittany Arvie.