Mount Vernon employee convicted of credit card fraud due for sentencing today

Fraida Hickson, a former Mount Vernon city official who admitted to using another person”™s credit card to pay for plastic surgery, is scheduled to be sentenced today.

In April, Hickson was charged with one count of credit card fraud in federal court in White Plains. She had been suspended from her post as deputy commissioner of parking for the city of Mount Vernon when the allegations arose.

Hickson used a Mount Vernon auxiliary police badge, according to the criminal complaint, to identify herself at the plastic surgeon”™s office in 2017. The fraud was discovered that same year when a woman, whose identity has not been revealed, noticed her credit score had dropped. Her credit report showed an unpaid balance of $20,465 on a CareCredit card for charges to a New York City plastic surgeon.

The woman said she had never applied for a CareCredit card, did not know the surgeon and did not know the person who had used the card.

Investigators say Hickson, who was earning a salary of more than $100,000 a year in her city job, had two plastic surgeries performed, with payment made on the CareCredit card.

The credit fraud charge carries a maximum 15-year sentence. Having repaid the victim, Hickson is asking for one-year probation and no jail time.