Former Columbus bakery owner who stole dead baby's identity sentenced for $1.5M in fraud

A former Columbus bakery owner will have to pay more than $1.5 million in restitution and spend six years in prison for her extensive fraud, including stealing the identity of a dead baby and obtaining federal pandemic-relief loans for defunct or nonexistent businesses.

Ava Misseldine, 50, formerly of Columbus, was sentenced Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Columbus for her guilty plea in October to 16 counts of wire and passport fraud.

Misseldine stole the identity of a baby who died in 1979 and is buried in a Columbus cemetery, according to court records. In 2003, she applied for an Ohio ID and later a Social Security card and driver’s license using the stolen identity. 

Misseldine was employed using the false identity as a flight attendant for JetSelect Aviation, a Columbus-based private jet charter company that was acquired by Jet Edge in 2020 and obtained a passport in 2007 using the assumed identity.

Over the next 13 years, Misseldine obtained identity documents using both her real and fake names, according to court records. 

Misseldine also obtained about $1.5 million in loans in 2020 through the Paycheck Protection Program — a federal program meant to help small businesses through the Covid pandemic — for at least 10 bakeries, restaurants and catering companies in Ohio that have not operated for years or never existed. This includes her former bakeries Sugar Inc. Cupcakes & Tea Salon in Dublin and the Koko Tea Salon & Bakery operations in New Albany and at Easton Town Center in Columbus.

Federal prosecutors say Misseldine used some of the fraudulentlyobtained money to purchase a home for $647,500 adjacent to Zion National Park in Utah and a home for $327,500 in Michigan.

Misseldine's defense attorney, Alan John Pfeuffer, told The Dispatch that she has already paid back more than $300,000 and is working with the government to sell her Utah home, which should get her close to repaying the $1.5 million she owes.

"Ava is very remorseful for her actions," Pfeuffer said. "She looks forward to receiving needed counseling while in the prison system."

Federal investigators began looking into Misseldine last year when she tried to renew a fraudulent passport, according to the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio Kenneth Parker’s office.

Authorities arrested Misseldine in Utah in June 2022.

jlaird@dispatch.com

@LairdWrites