BATON ROUGE — A Tennessee woman pleaded guilty Tuesday to defrauding two credit unions and three small businesses out of thousands of dollars and using the ill-gotten gains to buy vehicles - one of which came from an Ascension Parish dealership.

U.S. District Court records show Trisha Milstead, 53, of Newport, Tennessee, admitted engaging in wire fraud. The government alleged that, between May and July 2024, she opened an account online at a California credit union and transferred money from a non-existent account at a Mississippi credit union. Before the financial institutions could uncover the fraud, Milstead had withdrawn thousands of dollars, prosecutors said.

A new and used car dealership in Gonzales was among the businesses defrauded, prosecutors said.

According to the U.S. Attorney's office, Milstead used $38,000 to buy a Ford F-150 truck from a North Carolina truck dealer and more than $49,000 to buy a Cadillac SUV in Louisiana. Another check, worth more than $35,000, was used in an effort to buy a recreational vehicle in Tennessee, the prosecutors said.

Court records late Tuesday did not show a sentencing date.