Niagara Falls woman who stole over $500,000 from her employer and its clients pleads guilty to wire fraud

Nov. 10—A Niagara Falls woman who used her position at an investment advisory firm in Buffalo to steal more than $500,000 from her employer and its clients pleaded guilty Wednesday to wire fraud in federal court, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Prosecutors said 47-year-old Jennifer Campbell was the office manager and chief compliance officer with access to client accounts. Between November 2018 and May 2021, Campbell wrote checks from client accounts, forged the signatures of either the client or a principal at the firm, and then deposited the checks into her own personal account.

Campbell took several steps to conceal her thefts, according to prosecutors. She once sent a falsified account statement to one of her victims that showed an account balance of $148,000, when the account actually had only $93 in it at the time. Campbell also took funds from a client and transferred them to the bank account of someone whom she had ripped off earlier.

She gained access to the email accounts of principals at the firm and diverted emails sent to them from anti-money laundering and financial crimes personnel at the firm's broker-dealer. They had begun to raise questions about some of the transactions in which Campbell had engaged. In an effort to put off these inquiries, Campbell sent several emails using the email account of a principal at the firm in which she made various false statements and submitted fake documentation to make the transactions appear legitimate.

She is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 27.

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