Karyn Turk, the 2016 Mrs. Florida winner and right-wing commentator, has been given a one-month prison sentence after pleading guilty to stealing $17,350 in Social Security checks from her recently deceased mother.
Turk was sued by her mother’s former nursing home for failing to pay nursing home bills. Instead, she used the money to pay for shopping expenses, expensive dinners, and a nanny for her children, according to the Palm Beach Post.
U.S. magistrate Bruce Reinhart additionally sentenced Turk to 100 hours of community service to “remind her of the time she never spent with her mother.”
“The message I’m sending is: You can’t steal from the government and not go to jail,” Reinhart reportedly said.
Turk recently defended herself amid the reports, telling an ABC affiliate that her sentence was a “witch hunt” because of her “political affiliation.”
“In a lot of ways, this seems like a witch hunt against me, and I think a lot of it is because of my political affiliation,” she said.
Turk also lamented on her relationship with her mother, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and died at the age of 83 in July 2019.
“I was doing the best I could for a very long time, and yes, at the end, I made some mistakes but they weren’t mistakes in any way for the lack of caring for my mother,” she said.
Turk has made a name for herself a staunch supporter of President Trump, building up a following of 8,000 on Twitter and nearly 60,000 on Instagram. She hosts the syndicated interview show Behind the Headlines and provides political and news commentary for Russian state-network RT International.
She is to report on March 2 to begin her one-month prison sentence.
