A woman who posted on Twitter photographs of herself modeling Chanel shoes and bags she bought using counterfeit credit cards was sentenced Tuesday to 20 years in prison.
Falysha Pierre-Lys, 22, pleaded no contest to multiple theft and identity theft charges in April.
She was hoping for an eight-year term rather than the mandatory 20 years for first-degree identity theft. A provision in state law allows judges to give shorter terms to defendants who commit their crimes when they are age 21 or younger. Pierre-Lys was 21 when she and four friends traveled to Hawaii from New York in April 2012 and used the counterfeit cards.
"I was just being dumb. I just wanted to have fun. I didn’t really think about the consequences," Pierre-Lys said, "That’s what it was, living in the moment, not thinking for tomorrow."
Circuit Judge Randal K.O. Lee told Pierre-Lys that her crime was too sophisticated and involved too much money for him to grant her the break intended for young adults who show promise of rehabilitation and who pose no danger to the public. He also noted that Pierre-Lys had previously been arrested in Florida and New York for similar crimes.
"If I was to give you the young adult sentencing, then what the court in essence will be doing is condoning the worst type of theft that one could imagine — credit card fraud and ID theft," he said.
Lee said it takes sophistication to get the credit card numbers of other people and to create counterfeit cards. He also said Pierre-Lys and her friends tried to conceal their movements by traveling on separate airlines and when they arrived, immediately began using the counterfeit cards to extract as much money from the accounts as possible.
He noted that Pierre-Lys made $5,717 in purchases at a Chanel store in Waikiki then spent another $5,235 at the Chanel store in Ala Moana later that same day.
When her attempt to buy a $36,000 Rolex watch at Ben Bridge Jeweler was rejected, she instead bought a $10,000 watch, Deputy Prosecutor Chris Van Marter told Lee.
The state said Pierre-Lys and her friends tried to make $329,449 worth of transactions at luxury retail stores over five days but were successful in tallying just $179,676.
Lee held Pierre-Lys responsible for $36,450 of that, ordering her to pay $35,617 restitution to American Express and $832 to CitiBank.
Pierre-Lys is the second of the five to be sentenced.
In June, another state judge granted Tamel J. Vaughn, 24, a five-year deferral of his no-contest pleas to two counts of identity theft and one of theft, ordered him to pay $14,420 in restitution and allowed him to transfer his case to New York.
The three other defendants — Isatta J. Bassie, 20, Shawnese D. Adams, 24, and Sean M. Khani, 24 — are awaiting trial. Bassie and Adams were extradited last month after officials in Aruba, who were holding them on identity theft and similar charges, sent them back to New York.