Nicole Morales, 48, a California native and St. Croix resident, has been sentenced to 16 months in prison for embezzling $372,496.34 from her employer over a three-year period, United States Attorney Delia L. Smith announced.
In November 2023, Morales was charged in a 153-count wire fraud indictment.
Morales pleaded guilty in November 2024 to three counts of wire fraud. U.S. District Judge Wilma A. Lewis ordered her to pay full restitution and imposed a $300 special assessment.
According to court records, Morales worked as an office manager at Nichols, Newman, Logan, Grey, and Lockwood, P.C., where she handled payroll through Banco Popular. Starting December 2015, she inflated her salary using QuickBooks and transferred unauthorized funds into three personal bank accounts. She then altered the records to conceal the fraud, generating reports that reflected the correct payroll figures. The scheme continued until January 2019, when she had stolen more than $372,000.
