A former chief compliance officer for an investment firm in Buffalo, N.Y., faces up to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to swindling $500,000 from the firm and clients, including elderly and deceased individuals who had left assets in trusts, according tothe U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of New York.
Jennifer Campbell, 47, of Niagara Falls, N.Y., also faces a $250,000 fine at her sentencing, which is scheduled for February 27.
The Securities and Exchange Commission in a civil complaint filed in September said that between February 2019 and May 2021, Campbell engaged in a scheme where she misappropriated funds from client accounts through fraudulent checks and wire transfers.
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of New York brought criminal charges against Campbell for alleged wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
Neither the SEC nor the U.S. Attorney's Office identified the RIA firm she worked for, but at the time of the complaint, Kevin Keenan a spokesman for Pratt Collard Buck Advisory Group in Buffalo, confirmed that the firm was the RIA that employed Campbell.
Campbell was hired by the firm in March 2017 as the office manager, where she communicated with clients and had access to their accounts, according to the SEC. She was appointed CCO in September 2018, serving as the point person for compliance review and programs.
The SEC said she used this access to steal over $500,000 from several clients and from the firm itself, primarily by writing checks from client accounts, forging the signatures of either the client or a principal at the firm, and then depositing the checks into her own personal account.
The firm was terminated by its broker-dealer, Raymond James & Associates, in May because of Campbell’s misconduct, according to the complaint and ADV documents. ADV documents also showed that Pratt Collard Buck Advisory Group, as of June 2021, has been registered and operating as Private Advisor Group LLC.
In one instance, she forged checks and ACH documentation to steal $277,000 from a beneficiary account for a 93-year-old widow set up by her deceased husband, the SEC said. The account also was tied to accounts related to two businesses that leased certain property to a third party who paid rent by sending checks to the firm to be deposited into the respective accounts, the SEC said. The complaint said that between September 2020 and March 2021, Campbell stole about $54,500 by signing over the rent checks made out to the accounts to either her brokerage account or another account that she utilized.
In another instance, she sent a bogus account statement to a client that showed a balance of about $148,000, when in fact the account at the time only had $93 in it.
Campbell also hacked the emails of the firm’s principals and staff. When employees of the broker-dealer attempted to contact one of the firm’s principals by email to discuss unusual transaction activity, Campbell intercepted the emails, the SEC said.