{"id":403049,"date":"2026-07-18T02:53:41","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T02:53:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/403049\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T02:53:41","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T02:53:41","slug":"chula-vista-woman-who-faked-cancer-to-avoid-prison-back-in-court-for-forging-letters-san-diego-union-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/403049\/","title":{"rendered":"Chula Vista woman who faked cancer to avoid prison back in court for forging letters \u2013 San Diego Union-Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Chula Vista woman previously convicted of embezzling from her employer and then faking a cancer diagnosis to avoid going to prison pleaded guilty Thursday to new fraud charges for falsely representing to a prospective employer that she had been exonerated in her criminal case.<\/p>\n

Ashleigh Lynn Chavez, 42, was sentenced to prison<\/a> for taking over $160,000 from a former employer, then later submitting forged doctor\u2019s letters to a judge that recommended she serve time in home confinement rather than prison.<\/p>\n

She was released from custody in 2023.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors allege that the following year, she submitted a forged letter \u2014 supposedly written by her defense attorney \u2014 in a job application that fraudulently claimed she had been exonerated in the criminal case and that prosecutors dismissed all charges against her.<\/p>\n

The letter appeared to be written to Chavez from her attorney, and in it, the \u201cattorney\u201d advised Chavez that her court records had been sealed so she shouldn\u2019t share them with anyone, according to the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

Chavez had also been fired by a nonprofit after they discovered her convictions through a background check, but prosecutors say Chavez submitted a forged recommendation letter as part of her job application that was supposedly written by the nonprofit\u2019s CEO.<\/p>\n

Chavez was hired due in part to the forged documents, according to her plea agreement. She\u2019s slated to be sentenced in October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Chula Vista woman previously convicted of embezzling from her employer and then faking a cancer diagnosis to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18185,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,9974,1312,138,181,23,100,74,84,76,75,3055],"class_list":["post-403049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-california","tag-chula-vista","tag-courts","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-county","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-south-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}