Socialite Convicted in Scam Begins 16-Month Sentence : Crime: Lawyer says Susie Amash Hernandez reported to a federal camp in Phoenix. Her husband is already serving six years.

Susie Amash Hernandez, the once-wealthy Orange County socialite convicted with her husband of a precious metals scam, reported to the women’s Federal Prison Camp in Phoenix on Monday to start her 16-month sentence, her attorney said.

Hernandez’s husband, Danny Hernandez, 41, who authorities said masterminded the scam, is serving a six-year sentence at the Boron Federal Prison Camp near Brawley, said Joan Politeo Freeman, a deputy federal public defender.

Freeman, who defended Susie Hernandez at the couple’s trial, said the Phoenix prison is a minimum-security facility in which the inmates work in the commissary, the kitchen, the laundry and at other jobs.

On May 2, Susie Hernandez, who had pleaded guilty to counts of tax evasion, asked the court to delay the start of her surrender from Monday to June 20, saying she needed more time to arrange for the care of her children, ages 7 and 5. An Orange County Superior Court judge denied the request.

The children, Freeman said, will be taken care of by family and friends.

Susie Hernandez, 42, who could be released in a year with good behavior, plans to return to Orange County, Freeman said.

“She wants to settle back down here; she’s happy here,” Freeman said. “She has friends who are very supportive of her.”

But Hernandez “knows that she can’t live her life the way she has in the past and that when she gets out, she will start her life all over again,” Freeman said.

Before their arrest in February, 1993, the Hernandezes drove Rolls Royces and Mercedes-Benzes, lived in expensive homes in Mission Viejo and Laguna Niguel and vacationed in Paris and Milan.

They were known as philanthropists, donating thousands of dollars to Orange County charities, and socialites, throwing lavish parties at their two homes.

But their fortune, valued at the time at $9 million, was ill-gotten, authorities said. Danny Hernandez earned less than $60,000 a year working for PGP Industries of Santa Fe Springs, a precious metals dealer.

According to authorities, an unidentified person tipped off the Internal Revenue Service about the discrepancy between what Danny Hernandez earned and the couple’s lifestyle.

The IRS found that the couple had reported only $410,000 from 1985 to 1990, at a time when millions of dollars went through their bank account.

Government investigators found that during the 11 years that Danny Hernandez had worked at PGP Industries, he had transferred precious metals between company clients, arranged for PGP to buy the transferred metals, then asked PGP to pay for the transaction by check or wire to the customers’ accounts.

However, the accounts were controlled by Susie Hernandez, who would then siphon the money and put it in the couple’s own account, government officials said at the time of the couple’s trial.