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Katrina Robinson (born January 13, 1981) is an American former politician who served in the Tennessee Senate from the 33rd district from 2019 to 2022 as a member of the Democratic Party. She was the first sitting member of the state senate to be indicted since Operation Tennessee Waltz and later became the first person to ever be expelled from the state senate.
Robinson was born in Memphis, Tennessee, educated at the University of Memphis and Union University, and founded a nursing college in 2015. She was elected to the state senate in the 2018 election after defeating incumbent Senator Reginald Tate in the Democratic primary.
Robinson was indicted on forty-eight charges relating to the embezzlement of $600,000 from federal grants to her nursing school in 2020. The charges against her were reduced to twenty before Judge Sheryl H. Lipman acquitted her on fifteen charges. She was found guilty on four counts of wire fraud in 2021.
From 1998 to 2008, she attended the University of Memphis and graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administration in marketing management. In 2010, she graduated from Union University with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing.
Robinson was accused of stealing $600,000 from $2.2 million in federal grants given to her nursing school from 2015 to 2019. She was the first sitting member of the Tennessee Senate to be indicted since Operation Tennessee Waltz in 2005.
On August 12, 2020, she pleaded not guilty, but was found guilty on four of the five charges of wire fraud on September 30, 2021. The forty-eight charges were reduced to twenty charges and Judge Sheryl H. Lipman acquitted her of fifteen of the counts stating that the evidence matched to different theories which could cause a mistrial if theories were switched during the trial. She was sentenced on March 18, 2022 to one year supervised release. A federal case against her, Katie Ayers, and Brooke Boudreaux was dismissed by Lipman after Robinson agreed to complete at twelve month diversion period.
Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally called for Robinson to resign following her conviction. Robinson claims that she was "targeted for prosecution" and Representative Torrey Harris opposes forcing her out of the legislature and claimed that "there was no evidence presented that she misappropriated less than $3,500 from her own business". Robinson became the first member of the state senate to be expelled when the state senate voted twenty-seven to five, with all Republicans voting in favor and all Democrats voting against, on February 2, 2022, to remove her.
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Katrina Robinson campaign website
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