Nicole Morales, a resident of St. Croix and originally from California, has been sentenced to 16 months in prison for her involvement in an embezzlement scheme amounting to $372,496.34. The sentence was handed down by District Judge Wilma A. Lewis following Morales' guilty plea to three counts of wire fraud in November 2024.
Morales, who worked as an office manager at Nichols, Newman, Logan, Grey, and Lockwood, P.C., began the fraudulent activity in December 2015. Her responsibilities included processing payroll through Banco Popular. She used QuickBooks accounting software to inflate her payroll figures and then transferred unauthorized funds into her personal bank accounts. Afterward, she adjusted the QuickBooks entries to reflect accurate income and payroll data before generating reports that were approved by her employer.
The fraudulent activities continued until January 2019, resulting in a total embezzlement of $372,496.34 from her employer's account. In addition to the prison sentence, Judge Lewis ordered Morales to pay restitution equal to the embezzled amount and a special assessment fee of $300.
The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Daniel H. Huston and Rhonda Williams-Henry.