A woman who left her seven adopted children in Africa, where they were found malnourished at an orphanage, has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for fraud.
Mercury Liggins, 49, pleaded guilty to theft for accepting $443,000 (�368,370) in federal and state benefits for which she didn’t qualify, Harris County prosecutor Carl Hobbs said.
Liggins, who was sentenced Tuesday, faced up to life in prison.
She collected benefits from 1992 until 2005 even though she owned a number of houses which made her ineligible, Hobbs said.
Prosecutors began investigating Liggins in 2004 after her adopted children, who now range in age from 10 to 18, were found by an American missionary at a Nigerian orphanage who learned they were from Houston and wanted to go home.
Liggins has said she trusted her brother-in-law to care for the children in Nigeria in 2003 while she took a job in Iraq, working for Houston-based Halliburton subsidiary KBR. The children, who were returned to the United States, remain in foster care in Houston.