The lawyer for admitted swindler Rachelle Griggs asked a federal judge to give her a break when she was sentenced Wednesday, saying it was Griggs’ husband who was the brains of a Ponzi scheme that bilked nearly $2 million from Hawaii prison inmates serving time with him on the mainland, and their families.

"She didn’t have the sophistication and knowledge to do it," said Salina Althof, assistant federal public defender.

U.S. District Judge David Ezra disagreed. He said the ruse of gaining her victims’ trust through religion was perfectly tailored for the people Griggs and her husband targeted. "She did it in a manner so sophisticated it boggles the mind."

Ezra sentenced Griggs, 43, to four years in prison for mail and wire fraud and ordered her to repay her victims $1.9 million. He is scheduled to sentence her husband, Perry Jay, Friday.

Prosecutor Les Osborne said Rachelle Griggs knew exactly what was going on because her husband ran a previous Ponzi scheme in San Diego for which he was in prison in Nevada with the Hawaii inmates. "This defendant simply disregarded her husband’s previous conduct and his conduct in prison while she collected nearly $2 million on his behalf."

Two victims who attended the sentencing said they gave their money to the wife, not the husband. "She was the one who spent all the money living in a home in Hawaii Loa and drove a BMW," while her husband was in prison, said Oma Reyes-Moniz.

Nohea Colton, who said she remortgaged her Kuliouou home to "invest" $700,000 in the scheme, told Griggs she knew what she was doing when she took money from good people.