8 years in prison for Nevada woman in elder fraud conspiracy

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A 38-year-old Las Vegas woman has been sentenced to more than eight years in federal prison after she was convicted in New York in an elder fraud conspiracy targeting about 7,500 victims and generating about $10 million in proceeds. Federal prosecutors say Romana Leyva was a leader of a fraud conspiracy that exploited elderly victims by remotely accessing their computers and convincing them to pay for computer services. Prosecutors say the pop-up windows that appeared on victims screens falsely claimed that a virus had infected their computers. Some victims paid thousands of dollars for the promised computer services, which they didn’t really need, and never were actually provided.