Michigan: Over $200K Spent on Taylor Swift Tickets During $4.6M Child Modeling Fraud, Prosecutors Say

A Michigan woman who took $4.6 million from a family by promising modeling work for their young daughter spent more than $200,000 on Taylor Swift concert tickets while the fraud was underway, federal prosecutors say.

Chanise Coyne, 46, of New Boston, Michigan, was sentenced to five years in federal prison on September 22, 2026, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan announced.

Over $200,000 on concert tickets

The ticket detail comes from the Justice Department’s sentencing announcement. Citing court records, prosecutors said Coyne “spent over $200,000 for Taylor Swift concert tickets in Florida” while she was carrying out the fraud.

They did not say more than that. The announcement does not say how many tickets she bought, which shows they were for, or who used them. Nothing in it suggests that Swift, her team or any ticket seller knew about the scheme.

The tickets were not the only spending prosecutors pointed to. They said Coyne “used significant sums of her fraud proceeds for gambling,” but neither the plea nor the sentencing announcement puts a number on it.

That phrase describes money spent on gambling. It does not say how much she won or lost, and it does not mean that all, or most, of the $4.6 million was gambled away.

How the fake modeling scheme worked

The victims were one local family. Coyne told them their money would cover advance fees so their young daughter could take part in modeling events across the country, according to the Justice Department.

Those events were fictional. When she pleaded guilty on May 19, 2026, Coyne admitted making false records to back up the story, including fake text messages, emails and invoices about where the girl was supposedly being placed.

According to the Justice Department, Coyne took the money for her own benefit. None of it was used to place the girl in a single modeling event. The department’s announcements do not name the family or the child.

What prosecutors and the FBI said

U.S. Attorney Jerome F. Gorgon Jr. said after the sentencing that Coyne “used a child’s aspirations as a smokescreen for a multimillion-dollar fraud against a family. And when you prey on families, you will pay for it.”

Jennifer Runyan, who leads the FBI’s Detroit Field Office, said: “This was not a mistake or a momentary lapse in judgment. This was a calculated, multi-million-dollar fraud scheme that preyed on a family’s trust and a child’s aspirations for personal financial gain.”

What she was convicted of

Coyne pleaded guilty to wire fraud. When she entered her plea, the Justice Department said she faced up to 20 years in prison. The May plea announcement listed sentencing for September 1; she was ultimately sentenced on September 22.

The case against her started out bigger. After the FBI arrested her on February 26, 2026, prosecutors announced that an indictment had charged her with seven counts of wire fraud and five counts of money laundering, including alleged transactions involving the online sports gambling platform FanDuel.

Those counts were allegations, not findings. Her wire fraud plea does not show that she committed the money-laundering offenses, and FanDuel was not charged in the case. Our earlier report on the FanDuel money-laundering allegations looks at those counts in more detail.

What she owes

The court ordered Coyne to pay $4,669,962.76 in restitution.

A restitution order sets what she must pay back. It does not mean the family has recovered the money. The sentencing announcement does not state how much restitution, if any, has been paid.

After prison, she will serve three years of supervised release.

The FBI investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew J. Yahkind prosecuted it, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Kelly Fasbinder is handling related forfeiture matters.

Featured image: A Taylor Swift concert in London in August 2024. Photo: BrigidLIS / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)