SC con artist spent $46K on psychic. She didn’t foresee the prison time

Of the nearly $1 million that Allison Amanda Sauls of Chapin came by illegally in recent years, she spent roughly $46,000 on a psychic.

But the psychic, apparently, failed to warn Sauls, 48, the law would pounce.

This week, Sauls' career as a "con artist" who "disregards the law and derives her livelihood from fraudulent schemes," according to a federal prosecutor, came to a sudden end.

U.S. District Judge Michelle Childs sentenced Sauls to six years in prison for her part in a Camden-based scheme involving $350 million in government contracts for construction work at various military bases. The bases included Fort Jackson and Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina, and Fort Bragg in North Carolina.

Testimony and evidence, introduced by assistant U.S. Attorney DeWayne Pearson during a daylong sentencing hearing Tuesday, spun a wild tale. Beside being involved in the scheme, Sauls also had an affair with a co-conspirator, betrayed him and took $168,000 from one of their businesses and deposited it in her personal First Citizens Bank account.

Pearson said in court that Sauls' purchases with her ill-gotten gains included $22,000 for art, $20,000 for Louis Vuitton fashion items and thousands for high living in New York City.

The man who Sauls had the affair with, Thomas Brock of Camden, testified his wife discovered the affair by going through his email. His wife confronted Sauls, who immediately moved $168,000 from a business to her personal bank account, Brock testified.

Brock — the conspiracy's mastermind, according to the government — is charged with devising a scheme that allowed him to get hundreds of millions in government contracts that he shouldn't have been able to land. The contracts were supposed to go to construction companies operated by African-Americans, women or disabled veterans. However, Brock set up construction companies and installed friends who were minorities as the heads of those firms to win the contracts, according to court records.

Once the contracts were awarded, Brock's companies would make sure the work was done and he received the profits. Brock's minority friends were paid only a pittance, evidence in the case showed. However, by misrepresenting his companies as minority owned, Brock broke federal law.

Brock was well along in his scheme when he met Sauls in early 2012, he testified Tuesday.

At the time, Brock was spending more than he made. "We were have trouble paying bills," he testified.

Brock also testified that he and Sauls became lovers. A banking firm in New York City's garment district, with which Sauls had connections, made short-term, high-interest loans to Sauls, who moved the money to Brock, allowing him to keep his construction companies afloat, Brock testified.

Everything collapsed in 2016, when the U.S. attorney's office in Columbia indicted Brock, Sauls and five others in the scheme. The other five defendants pleaded guilty. Four received probation. Another defendant, Jerry Eddings, received a two-year prison sentence.

In his testimony Tuesday, Brock signaled he likely will plead guilty, too.

Parks Small, Sauls' court-appointed lawyer, argued the prosecution overstated the harm that Sauls' scheming had done. He also presented witnesses who testified that Sauls has had a tough life, including bouts of manic depression.

However, in asking for a stiff sentence, prosecutor Pearson portrayed Sauls as a chronic bamboozler. He told Childs that Sauls had forged Brock's signature on paperwork to get a loan for a Chevy Tahoe, bought a home in Chapin with money from the New York banking firm, attempted a takeover of an electric company with phony stock certificates and had taken money from other peoples' bank accounts.

This story was originally published June 20, 2018 at 2:31 PM with the headline "SC con artist spent $46K on psychic. She didn’t foresee the prison time."