A 38-year-old Kahu­lui woman who swindled six Maui residents out of nearly $800,000 is going to federal prison for at least a year for sending some of the money to the mainland.

U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright sentenced Jedi­dah Dua­ro­san on Thursday to 27 months in prison for interstate transport of stolen property. Seabright also ordered Dua­ro­san to repay her victims the $749,925 she took from them.

The government said Dua­ro­san and another person from California made multiple presentations on Maui in 2006 promising "investors" guaranteed 5 percent-per-month returns, plus a cash bonus at the end of the term for loaning them money for 90-day periods.

Duarosan and her uncharged cohort told their victims the money would be invested in real estate development in the Philippines and gold in Indonesia. Dua­ro­san also promised one person that she would put the money in an oil investment.

Instead of investing the money she collected from October 2006 to April 2007, the government said Dua­ro­san spent $106,000 of it on herself, including paying off personal debt; lost $60,000 when she put down a nonrefundable deposit for a land purchase she was unable to close; and sent $100,000 to refund one of her cohort’s prior investors on the mainland.

Duarosan should have been sentenced last November. That was postponed because she filed papers in federal court on the date of her sentencing containing civil claim accusations against her public defender. She had also filed papers against a lender who was trying to eject her from a Wai­luku property the lender had foreclosed. Both of her claims were later dismissed.