Brick Woman Pleads Guilty in $1.3M Wire Fraud Scheme

A Brick woman pleaded guilty to a wire fraud scheme that cost her employer $1.3 million, officials announced.

Karen Sipes, 40, entered the guilty plea before U.S. District Judge Joel Pisano in federal court in Trenton. She admitted her theft from Toll Global Forwarding, multi-national company based in Carteret.

She was originally charged by complaint in November 2012.

Authorities had alleged that while Sipes was employed at Toll Global, known as TGF – from August 2010 through August 2012 – she was responsible for entering vendor transactions and invoices into the company's accounts payable accounting system and paying those vendors by preparing checks from TGF. As a result, Sipes had access to, and significant control over, TGF’s accounts payable accounting and bill payment systems.

In the false invoicing scheme, Sipes identified vendors with a high number of transactions and invoices in TGF’s accounting system. She admitted she would then create and input fake transactions and invoices for them, preparing checks payable to herself.

Sipes also admitted in court that she identified legitimate vendor transactions and invoices and changed vendors’ names to her name, making those checks payable to herself. She also used TGF checks to pay the credit card bill of a family member and accessed TGF’s accounting system to remove any record of the fraudulent transactions.

Sipes now faces as much as 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. As part of her guilty plea, Sipes is required to pay restitution of $1,335,698.93 to Toll Global Forwarding. Sentencing is scheduled for July 29, 2014.