Crime & Law

IDOC Worker Pleads Guilty to Padding the Payroll of Her Correctional Officer Husband

BENTON — An Illinois Department of Corrections payroll worker admitted in federal court Wednesday that she falsified her correctional officer husband's overtime and holiday pay, defrauding the state of nearly $125,000.

Maggi Tudor, 34, who worked as an account technician at the Pinckneyville Correctional Center in southern Illinois, pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud and one count of theft from a federally funded program.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathleen Howard of the Southern District told the court Tudor "abused her position of trust” to defraud the state prison system, which also receives federal funding.

According to a stipulation of facts she signed, Tudor doctored her husband's payroll records for about two and a half years, from July 1, 2022, through Dec. 30, 2024, while he worked as a correctional officer at the Murphysboro Life Skills Re-Entry Center, a satellite facility of the Pinckneyville Correctional Center.

Under the plea agreement, the parties calculated an advisory federal sentencing guideline range of 10 to 16 months in prison and a fine of $5,500 to $55,000, but the judge is not bound by that recommendation.

Tudor was charged in January, and under the terms of her plea agreement, the government agreed to drop four of its wire fraud charges. She last received pay from the state of Illinois in March and earned about $11,900 this year, according to the Illinois comptroller's salary database. She earned about $58,100 in 2025.

An IDOC spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions about the case, or the employment status of Tudor or her husband, who was not charged, and according to the Illinois comptroller's salary database, still serves as a correctional officer. He earned $137,800 in 2024, more than $57,000 over his base pay. He made $86,800 in 2025 and has been paid $43,400 through June of this year.

Tudor also agreed to pay $124,917.35 in restitution to the state. Her sentencing hearing is scheduled for Nov. 9 in federal court in Benton.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.

This article first appeared on Capitol News Illinois and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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