A former payroll supervisor pleaded guilty in January this year to making, possessing, and uttering forged securities and has now been sentenced to 18 months in prison, followed by 3 years of supervised release, and restitution in an amount yet to be determined.

Over a four and half year period, Nicole Bartlett forged and stole more than 440 checks with a value of more than $200,000 and paid them into her personal bank accounts. She had the first check issued just four days after she joined the Children's Museum. As payroll supervisor, she was responsible for preparing the check request to Automated Data Processing ("ADP"), the company that prepared the museum's actual payroll checks.

Each week Bartlett electronically transmitted the payroll information to ADP and, within a few days, ADP hand delivered the completed payroll checks to the museum by courier. The completed checks were delivered to Bartlett who was responsible for ensuring all of the requested checks were received and then distributing those checks to the museum's employees. In addition to the checks ADP prepared, the museum kept a more traditional checkbook for its payroll account which was used to handwrite checks to employees.

The forgery/theft scheme was executed in at least three different forms.

In its most common form, the scheme consisted of making routine requests of ADP to generate bogus, duplicate checks made payable to various museum employees, more than 200 over the duration of the scheme.

In a second form of the theft, Bartlett again directed ADP to prepare bogus checks, this time from funds that were set aside by the museum on behalf of its employees as tax withholding funds. Once these check were received, she followed the same routine, stealing the check and depositing it into one of her personal bank accounts.

In the third iteration of the fraud, she used the museum's manual payroll checkbook to handwrite checks made payable to various museum employees. She achieved this by creating two authorized signatories on the account to endorse the checks by providing them with falsified back-up documentation.

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...back to 12 May 2005


Further information:
Former Employee of The Children's Museum Sentenced for Stealing More Than $200,000 From Her Former Employer, Reports U.S. Attorney