A former congressional staffer has admitted to siphoning more than 20,000 dollars from the personal bank account of an Ohio congresswoman to pay off her own credit card debt. Courtney Hruska, 40, entered a guilty plea to wire fraud charges on Tuesday, March 31, 2026, in a federal court in Alexandria.
Hruska worked for Representative Marcy Kaptur between 2015 and 2022. During her seven years on staff, she was entrusted with the congresswoman’s private financial information and credit cards as part of her official duties. Even after leaving the office for a new position at the Department of Agriculture, Hruska used that sensitive data to make ten unauthorized payments toward her personal credit card balances between August 2023 and July 2024.
According to court documents, Hruska specifically targeted the funds because she knew her former boss was not tech savvy and did not use electronic banking or mobile alerts. This allowed the theft of 22,865 dollars to go unnoticed for nearly a year. Because of the long delay in discovering the fraud, the congresswoman was only able to recover less than nine percent of the stolen money through her bank.
Hruska now faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for the wire fraud conviction. Her sentencing is officially scheduled for June 23, 2026, where a federal judge will determine her final punishment based on sentencing guidelines and the specific facts of the theft.