Butte County woman gets year in prison for disaster relief fraud in massive Camp Fire

A Butte County woman who obtained more than $77,000 in federal disaster relief funds and assistance after falsely claiming her Paradise home was destroyed in the 2018 Camp Fire was sentenced Monday to a year and a day in federal prison.

Deborah Frances Laughlin, 66, of Magalia appeared in federal court in Sacramento in a wheelchair before Senior U.S. District Judge William B. Shubb, who rejected pleas from her lawyer that Laughlin be sentenced to time served — eight days — or home confinement because of her health ailments.

“She’s ended up with $77,000 that she was not entitled to and there needs to be some punishment,” Shubb said. “Otherwise, crime pays.”

Laughlin’s defense attorney, Tim Zindel, argued that his client had suffered from years of drug abuse and mental illness, and that she finally has obtained medical care in Oroville that has stabilized her condition and that sending her to prison would put her life at risk.

He also said that Laughlin spent all of 2018 “in a psychotic state” and was homeless when she accepted the government’s offer of shelter.

“What we have here is a woman in her 60s who was homeless and psychotic who was offered shelter,” Zindel said, arguing that sending Laughlin to a prison where she might die is “an excessive outcome for committing FEMA fraud.”

Laughlin told the judge that she had lost some personal belongings that were stored in a rental locker in Paradise, but added that she was remorseful.

“I know that the things I have done, they were wrong,” Laughlin said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Shelley Weger had argued in court filings for a 30-month sentence, writing that it is important for the public to see that the government takes disaster fraud cases seriously.

“The defendant took advantage of the tragedy of the Camp Fire by creating a false narrative about being a fire victim so that she could obtain benefits FEMA made available to legitimate victims who lost their primary residence in the fire,” Weger wrote. “To the extent the defendant is now trying to suggest that this crime was the result of a mental illness, such a claim is not supported by any evidence.

“Nor is there any evidence to suggest that this crime was the result of the defendant’s use of illegal drugs, but even if it were, this is not a mitigating factor.”

Court papers say that days after the Camp Fire destroyed the town of Paradise in November 2018 Laughlin applied for Federal Emergency Management Agency funds claiming her rented mobile home and belongings had been destroyed in the blaze, despite the fact that she no longer lived there.

The federal government later gave her $7,886.70 to replace personal belongings “lost” in the fire and $1,788 to cover two months’ rent, court papers say.

The government also provided her a FEMA trailer where she lived from June 2019 through April 2021, which cost the government $67,586.58, court papers say.

The Camp Fire was the deadliest and most destructive in California history, killing 85 people, destroying nearly 19,000 structures and burning 240 square miles. Cal Fire investigators eventually blamed the fire on Pacific Gas & Electric transmission lines.