Former New Jersey Law Firm Employee Sentenced to 21 Months in Prison for Stealing More Than $500,000 from Law Firm

TRENTON—The former bookkeeper of a law firm based in Ocean County, New Jersey was sentenced to 21 months for defrauding her former employer by stealing more than $500,000 from the firm, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.

Sharon Wetter, 53, of Forked River, New Jersey, previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Mary L. Cooper to an information charging her with one count of mail fraud. Judge Cooper imposed the sentence today in Trenton federal court.

According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:

Wetter admitted that between 2004 and October 2010, she embezzled from her former employer, referred to in court documents only as the “law firm,” by wrongfully writing checks from the bank accounts of the firm to pay her outstanding personal credit card balances and to make car payments. Wetter concealed those payments by altering the law firm’s electronic books and records to make it appear that the checks were for legitimate business expenses. Wetter, who had access to checks and bank accounts in order to perform her duties as the firm’s bookkeeper, used that access to divert more than $500,000.

In addition to the prison term, Judge Cooper sentenced Wetter to three years of supervised release and ordered Wetter to make restitution in the amount of $521,596.

U.S. Attorney Fishman credited special agents of the Red Bank Resident Agency of the FBI, under the direction of Acting Special Agent in Charge David Velazquez, for their work in the investigation of this case.

The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Harvey Bartle of the U.S. Attorney’s Trenton Office.