Resident of New Hampshire Pleads Guilty to Wire Fraud
| U.S. Attorney’s Office March 31, 2014 |
CONCORD, NH—Nikki Donovan, 25 of Hollis, has pleaded guilty in United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire to a fraud scheme that involved the use of interstate wire communications and the theft of more than $350,000, announced United States Attorney John P. Kacavas.
From January 2011 to July 2013, Donovan was employed as the payroll manager for a consortium of health clubs that are located in Nashua, Manchester, Merrimack, Milford, Goffstown, and Hudson, New Hampshire.
From her office in Nashua, New Hampshire, Donovan electronically reported information regarding the health clubs’ payrolls to a payroll a company located in Massachusetts. The payroll company relied on this information to calculate the health clubs employees’ salaries and to issue payroll checks to the employees, including Donovan. In the weekly payroll reports Donovan submitted to the payroll company, she falsely reported the number of hours she worked and her hourly wage. As a result, during the 30-month period that she was employed as the payroll manager, Donovan falsely inflated her salary by approximately $350,000.
Donovan is facing up to 20 years in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced on July 17, 2014.
The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Robert Kinsella.