A 49-year-old Navarre woman was sentenced Thursday to 7.5 years in prison for defrauding an elderly woman of more than $582,000 from March 2020 to September 2021.

• Sheena Russell received the sentence from Judge William Stone in Okaloosa County court after pleading guilty to elder exploitation. She must serve 22 years of probation following her prison term and pay $707,333.21 in restitution.

Russell knew victim Rita Shuck and her late husband for years, having served them as a waitress at a Fort Walton Beach restaurant. She began doing errands for Shuck after her husband passed away, according to court testimony.

“She befriended my sister, gained her trust, and then stole from her,” said Jerry Peck, Shuck’s brother, who lives near Kansas City, Missouri. Peck said he wanted Russell “to receive the maximum amount of time by law and probation to pay for full restitution.”

The investigation began when Peck contacted authorities after discovering suspicious withdrawals from his sister’s accounts. Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office Investigator Michael Kruger found that Russell used funds to help pay off her mortgage, buy vehicles and fund trips to Walt Disney World, Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas, Washington, D.C. and a ski trip to Utah.

Audio recordings played in court revealed Russell impersonating Shuck during phone calls with financial institutions to access her accounts. Kruger testified that Russell initially appeared on recordings helping Shuck with legitimate requests, but then began impersonating her entirely.

On one recording from March 23, 2020, Russell’s voice is clearly different from Shuck’s usual pattern of spelling out her name during bank calls. In earlier recordings, Shuck would always spell out “RITA” and then “SHUCK” when asked for her name, but the suspicious recording showed a different pattern.

• “The third recording, there’s a voice that comes on that says that she’s Rita, but it’s definitely not Rita,” Kruger testified. “It appears to be a younger person due to the cadence of their voice, the types of language they’re using and the knowledge.”

Kruger said the fraud escalated after initial transactions. From March through May 2020, four transfers from USAA totaled more than $160,000. After that, transfers from Charles Schwab “escalated to $400 and something thousand,” he testified.

The investigator detailed how Russell opened a checking account to facilitate the transfers after initially trying to have a $75,000 check sent to a post office box. When Russell realized she couldn’t cash the check because it was in the trust name, she opened an account and had the money transferred there instead, then moved it to her Darden account.

Russell even continued the scheme after Shuck moved to Missouri, Kruger testified. During a phone call with a Darden Bank representative while the victim was in Missouri, Russell lied and said the transfers were part of a legitimate business venture, according to Kruger’s testimony. Russell told the bank representative “we’re in business together” and claimed it was “property management,” Kruger said.

Amy Martin, an analyst with the State Attorney’s Office who reviewed the financial records, testified that Russell spent at least $51,000 on vacations, including four trips to Disney. Other expenditures included $60,000 toward Russell’s current home and payments for multiple vehicles.

Russell’s mother, Teresa Magnus, testified that her daughter went through a “very dark period” after the death of Russell’s daughter Brianna in May 2020. Magnus said the behavior was “very uncharacteristic” for Russell.

• “If she had not have told me what she had done, I would’ve never believed it,” Magnus said.

Russell took responsibility for her actions during her testimony, reading a prepared statement to the court.

“I stand here today before my family in this court taking full responsibility for my actions,” Russell said. “The truth is, I had been carrying hurt for a long time. I have always worked hard for what I wanted, but especially after losing my daughter, Brianna, I felt like I was owed something.”

She described the period as feeling like “the world was ending” due to COVID and her daughter’s death.

Russell had already paid $100,000 in restitution as part of her plea agreement. The judge ordered her to make monthly payments of $1,000 during probation, with payments going first to Shuck until her portion is satisfied, then to financial institutions.

Shuck, now 103, lives in an assisted care facility in Missouri, and has beginning stages of dementia, according to her brother’s testimony.

Additional probation conditions include maintaining employment, submitting financial accounts to probation officers, completing financial literacy and anti-fraud courses, and having no contact with the victim or her family.

The state attorney argued for the full sentence, noting that Russell continued taking money even after Shuck moved to Missouri, telling bank representatives that it was part of a business venture.

• “This isn’t some random event. This was someone she knew for 20 years that suddenly she decided to pillage the accounts,” State Attorney Gillespie said.

Russell was originally charged with theft over $100,000, organized scheme to defraud more than $50,000 and elderly exploitation after her arrest in July 2022.