UPDATE: A judge has approved the delay of Jordan Chiles’ mother’s prison start. Story here.
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — After the Olympics begin next week in Tokyo, Vancouver’s Jordan Chiles may be a household name as part of the US gymnastics team.
But her mother, Gina Chiles, is getting notoriety for a much different reason. The same day Jordan is expected to compete for Olympic team gold, Gina is supposed to report to federal prison.
Court documents say she admitted stealing from her clients and said she spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on personal expenses.
When KOIN 6 News spoke with Gina Chiles at the US Olympic trials in St. Louis about the children’s book she wrote, we were unaware she owed her clients more than $1.2 million.
Federal court papers say one client, Karla Pearlstein, lost $945,000 after renting the Victorian Belle Mansion in North Portland to Chiles to run as a wedding venue.
Pearlstein, who previously helped Chiles start Inspire Vision Property Management, now describes her as “somebody that has absolutely no shame. She is an operator. I mean, she was a total operator.”
Court documents say that “over the course of nearly 4 years…Chiles embezzled…from clients” and “had stolen so much she could no longer cover the resulting shortfalls by moving clients’ money around.”
“I just happened to lift the flap of her copy machine,” Pearlstein said. “And I realized that she was falsifying bank statements. She had a Key Bank statement and she was, like, taping over the numbers on the statement to show what she wanted it to show.”
KOIN 6 News tried to reach both Gina Chiles and her lawyers but have not yet heard back.
When she gets out of prison she’s ordered to begin paying back the money she stole.
“Gina is very charming and she seems like, apparently to the court, she seemed like she was a low risk,” Pearlstein said. “They were pushing back her imprisonment date because of her daughter’s Olympic work. I really think that what she got was a, basically, a slap on the wrist.”
Gina Chiles pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and was sentenced to federal prison for one year and one day. She has to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons before 2 p.m. on July 27 — the same day her daughter and the rest of Team USA gymnastics is expected to compete for Olympic gold.