Ex-Dartmouth newspaper office manager gets 15 months in $223G fraud case

CONCORD - A Vermont woman was sentenced on Monday for stealing $223,000 from The Dartmouth ("The D"), the student newspaper at Dartmouth College.

Nicole Chambers, 41, of Springfield, Vt., was sentenced by U.S. District Court Chief Judge Landya B. McCafferty to 15 months in prison and three years of supervised release. Chambers pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud on April 30.

The D is the lead student newspaper at Dartmouth College and is a nonprofit run by student volunteers. Between 2012 and 2021, Chambers was the office manager for The D. In her role, Chambers had full access to The D's finances, including its bank account, PayPal and Venmo accounts, and debit card. Between April 2017 and September 2021, Chambers stole money from The D. According to a release sent out Monday by the U.S. Attorneys Office in Concord, she primarily used her access to The D's PayPal accounts to make unauthorized transfers to accounts she controlled. She also made unauthorized transfers from The D's Venmo account and made unauthorized purchases on the newspaper's debit card.

In total, Chambers stole $223,372.51 from The D. She misused the funds on personal expenses, including plane tickets, hotels, and lodging across the United States and Caribbean as well as on items such as a 12-inch green tea memory foam mattress and bedframe. She also used The D's funds to pay $1,900 in fees associated with her husband's court case in Newport (Rhode Island) County Superior Court.

"The Dartmouth, a non-profit student newspaper, entrusted the defendant with their finances, and she betrayed that trust by embezzling more than $223,000 over the course of four-and-a-half years," said U.S. Attorney Jane Young. "This was a crime motivated by the defendant's greed, plain and simple. The defendant stole to fund her high lifestyle, including trips across the United States and Caribbean and purchasing luxury items. The consequence of crimes like this is federal prison."

"Fraud is never the ticket to lasting financial gain, as Nicole Chambers has now discovered," said Jodi Cohen, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Boston Division. "Over the course of four years, Ms. Chambers stole and squandered almost a quarter-million dollars from the nonprofit newspaper she worked for so she could live well above her means. Justice demands that financial fraudsters like her be held accountable for their crimes and today's sentencing ensures that."