HILO, Hawai'i — A Hilo woman convicted in the largest welfare fraud case ever uncovered on the Big Island was sentenced to 10 years in prison yesterday, but the prosecutor in the case said he is still uncertain of the woman's true identity.

Victoria Donnelly-Korondi, 54, pleaded guilty in November to felony theft and identity theft charges after spending 22 years impersonating a woman who was killed in a car crash in Idaho decades ago.

Donnelly-Korondi, also known as Gabriella Victoria Donnelly, Gabriella Victoria and Patricia Fox, assumed the identity of Karen L. Johnston in the early 1980s, and from June 1988 on collected more than $308,000 in welfare benefits in Hawai'i under Johnston's name, said Big Island Deputy Prosecutor Rick Damerville.

The real Johnston was 23 years old when she died in a one-car crash in Burgdorff, Idaho, on Aug. 22, 1977. Big Island authorities began investigating Donnelly-Korondi after receiving an anonymous tip, Damerville said.

That tipster "knows who she's not," Damerville said. "I'm not sure anybody knows who she is."

Damerville said authorities in Switzerland, Canada and the U.S. have suspected at different times that she was a citizen of each of those countries. Donnelly-Korondi claims to be a Swiss citizen, he said.

Hilo Circuit Court Judge Glenn Hara yesterday sentenced Donnelly-Korondi to two concurrent 10-year prison terms for first-degree theft and second-degree identity theft, and ordered her to pay $292,000 in restitution.

Using the assumed identity, Donnelly-Korondi was able to collect food stamps, welfare payments, medical assistance and Section 8 housing assistance for low-income families.

Donnelly-Korondi told investigators that she moved to the Big Island in 1983, moved on to Kaua'i in 1991, and then returned to the Big Island in 2001.

Federal and state authorities followed leads in Hawai'i, Utah, Idaho and Arizona in their effort to learn Donnelly-Korondi's true identity after her May 17 arrest in the Hilo office of the state Department of Human Services.

Hawai'i officials became suspicious of Donnelly-Korondi at least once. According to court records, she applied for a Kaua'i driver's license in 1995 under Johnston's name, but Kaua'i officials withheld the license because their checks showed the real Karen Johnston had died years before.

Donnelly-Korondi's case is the second-largest welfare fraud case in state history.

The largest involved Peninatautele Fiamate, a Palolo woman who was convicted of defrauding the state of $342,300 from 1990 to 1999. Fiamate was sentenced to 17 months in federal prison.

Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com.