For the fist time since being indicted by a Grand Jury, the Creative Creations owner stands before a federal judge.
Patricia Urbanovsky, the owner of Creative Creations, pleads not guilty in federal court Monday afternoon to 16 counts of wire fraud and 9 counts of money laundering. If convicted she faces up to 365 years in prison.
The indictment alleges more than 4.5 million dollars was defrauded from customers. Prosecutors will turn over 100,000 pages of documents.
"They subpoenaed all of her bank records, all of the business records, so I'm guessing that's what it is," said Steve Lefler, Urbanovsky's attorney.
The indictment says Urbanovsky ran her travel voucher business similar to a Ponzi scheme. They claim she'd sell travel vouchers for discounted prices knowing the flights actually cost more.
The indictment indicates for more than a year starting in 2014 she would tell people it wasn't a scam, and she had a connection at Southwest Airlines to discounted rates. In the Spring of 2015, it came crashing down and customers were out hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
"As corny as this is because I hate it when I here other lawyers say this I really can't wait until we get to trial and we can show our side of things. I'm not going to tell you what that side of things is yet but I can't imagine were going to work out any kind of deal here," Lefler explained.
Urbanovsky is also charged in state court and posted 10% of a $100,000 bond. Federal prosecutors released her under a long list of stipulations that include her turning over her financial documents for an audit.
