CINCINNATI (WCMH) – A former Southern Ohio mayor has been sentenced to over two years in prison after stealing over $700,000 from a Clermont County family business.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of Ohio, 49-year-old Tina Coday-Townes of Sardinia will serve 28 months in prison for wire fraud and was ordered to pay restitution to a business she worked for in Clermont County.

In October 2022, Coday-Townes pleaded guilty to wire fraud after she admitted to writing herself business checks to pay off her personal credit cards between 2013 and 2019. She also said she made false entries into the accounting database, showing that checks were received by vendors.

In addition, Coday-Townes, who served as the office manager of Custom Built Crates, where she was responsible for accounts payable, bookkeeping and sending data to a third-party payroll company, entered overtime hours for herself, despite not being eligible for overtime as a salaried employee.

Coday-Townes was also the mayor of Sardina, where she served from 2019 until she resigned in July 2022.

Her sentence requires her to pay $697,000 in restitution to her former employer, $11,500 to the State of Ohio for fraudulently paid unemployment benefits and $35,000 to West American Insurance Company.