A onetime executive with an Osseo home health care company is heading to prison for stealing more than $840,000. In a scheme that she pinned on her shopping addiction.

Lori Jo Mueller, 48, of Apple Valley, was sentenced Wednesday in federal court to four years and three months in prison for siphoning off money for more than six years from Edelweiss Hope Health Care. Edelweiss was forced to close in the wake of the thefts.  

The sentence which calls for her to make restitution for the full amount, is the top end of the advisory guidelines.

From June, 2006 through June, 2012 Mueller stole about $842,000 from Edelweiss in nearly 350 acts of theft to pay credit card bills and other personal expenses. She pleaded guilty in February to wire fraud and health care fraud.

Mueller, who began working for Edelweiss in 2002 as a bookkeeper and was promoted to vice president of operations, was responsible for the review and payment of corporate invoices, bookkeeping and other financial matters. This access allowed her to issue company checks to herself.

Scammers are virtually everywhere, and they are targeting Senior Citizens now more than ever. Why? Because seniors are where the money is. According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), seniors lose several billion dollars each year to fraud schemes. Fraud prevention efforts by law enforcement and administrative action such as publishing alerts on active schemes