The former owner of a trio of San Diego businesses that provided surrogacy consulting services to prospective parents was sentenced Friday to two years in prison for stealing money from her clients.
Lillian Arielle Markowitz, 40, who owned My Donor Cycle, Surrogacy Beyond Borders and Expecting Surrogacy, pleaded guilty to taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from escrow accounts set up for her clients to pay for surrogacy services, according to federal prosecutors.
Her plea agreement includes admissions to submitting fraudulent escrow disbursement requests to the escrow company, one of which included a forged client signature, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. Nine other clients’ funds were not placed into escrow accounts as promised but were instead deposited into a business checking account she used to pay other business and personal expenses, according to prosecutors.
Markowitz, whom the U.S. Attorney’s Office says also went by Lillian Frost, started taking client funds in 2018 when financial problems set in, prosecutors said.
A sentencing memorandum from Markowitz’s defense attorney, Jessica Oliva, states that the financial issues that plagued her client not only disrupted her ability to pay for clients’ services but also her day-to-day living expenses.
“Facing mounting debt and desperate to fulfill the guarantees she had promised to hopeful parents, she made catastrophic choices,” the memorandum reads.
As part of her plea to a federal wire fraud charge, she agreed to pay restitution of at least $389,142 to her former clients.
