ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- A former Rhodes scholar and beauty queen who assumed a new identity to obtain large student loans has pleaded guilty to fraud charges.
Rachel Yould was charged with nine counts of mail fraud and one count of wire fraud. Her trial was to begin Monday in federal court in Anchorage but she pleaded guilty Thursday.
The 38-year-old Yould claimed that she was sexually abused as a child, raped as a young woman and forced to go into hiding with a new identity, and a new Social Security number. The Social Security administration lets severe victims of abuse receive new identities under a little-known program.
But prosecutors contend that Yould is a schemer who used the program to get nearly $680,000 in fraudulent loans.
