The heartless fraudster who scammed donations by falsely claiming her nephew was killed in the Sandy Hook school massacre beat back an identity-theft charge — because the slain child didn’t actually have the aunt she pretended to be.
Nouel Alba was indicted in The Bronx last year for posting on Facebook that she was related to tragic Noah Pozner and needed money to help bury him following the December 2012 mass shooting in Connecticut.
Alba, of The Bronx, professed that she had identified Noah and cradled his “lifeless body” before telling “my brother and sister-in-law” that their son had been murdered.
But acting Bronx Supreme Court Justice Martin Marcus — who called Alba’s scheme “without question, reprehensible” — ruled that she can’t be prosecuted for identity theft “because the person whom the defendant purported to be did not exist,” according to a report Tuesday by the New York Law Journal.
“There was no evidence presented to the grand jury that Noah Pozner had a paternal aunt, and it is uncontested that he did not,” Marcus wrote.
Marcus also tossed a felony charge of “scheme to defraud” on grounds of double jeopardy, saying it was “essentially the same” crime that Alba, 38, admitted in June when she pleaded guilty to wire fraud in Hartford federal court.
Alba — who reportedly netted a mere $240 from the scam — initially was charged by the feds in December 2012 with making false statements, and the fraud charge was added on the day of her guilty plea.
She’s currently serving eight months in a minimum-security prison camp in Alderson, W.Va.
The lockup, known as “Camp Cupcake,” is the same place where domestic diva Martha Stewart was sent for lying to the feds during an insider-trading investigation.
A spokesman for the Bronx District Attorney’s Office said: “We are going to take some time to digest the decision and decide whether we have further recourse.”