Second fraudster sentenced

ANCHORAGE — A second person accused of harassing a Valley child services worker until she left the state has been sentenced in federal court for an investment fraud scheme.

Floyd Leroy Lee Jr., 32, of Anchorage, was sentenced to three years and one month in prison for the scam that ran from September 2011 to March 2012 under the phony company name Platinum Investments Inc, the U.S. Attorney in Anchorage says in a Friday press release.

“Lee, assisted by his co-defendant in the case, Mary Elizabeth Transki, solicited investors with the promise of high-yield returns in a brief amount of time,” according to the press release.

In its short run, the company managed to pull in $63,000, which Lee and Transki then used “for their own personal use and benefit,” according to the press release.

Transki got 21 months in prison in a hearing Aug. 19.

“In sentencing Lee to 37 months in prison (U.S. District) Judge (Sharon) Gleason noted that Lee and Transki had preyed on small investors who are the type of individuals least able to absorb the loss of investment funds,” the press release states.

Lee and Transki were the stars of court filings in a lawsuit against the state of Alaska filed by Lisa Carpenter, who said that during her time as an employee of the Offices of Children Services in Wasilla the state didn’t do enough to protect her from their harassment.

The harassment included false reports that she’d assaulted the two people and their children, allegations she was an embezzler, animal abuser, liar and an impersonator of an OCS employee.

Eventually Carpenter resigned her job but, according to her lawsuit, Lee and Transki kept up the harassment.

In addition to the reports, they allegedly placed phony ads on Craigslist pointing people to Carpenter’s home for everything from children’s toys to cheap vehicles and sexual favors.

Carpenter claimed to at one point have been driven to change her phone number and stand on the deck of her home defending it with a gun. She eventually left the state and later filed a lawsuit against the state.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.