A former television news anchor joked about cheating taxpayers in a text sent to her husband prior to being convicted of a billion-dollar COVID fraud scheme.
Stephanie Hockridge-Reis, who was a former Emmy-nominated local Phoenix news anchor prior to becoming a fintech entrepreneur, told her husband, Nathan Reis, that they were “trying to apply for free money” when they requested Payment Protection Program (PPP) loans during the height of the pandemic.
“This is us trying to apply for free money — when we don’t quite qualify. lol,” she texted, according to a federal indictment obtained by the Arizona Republic…