Pittsburgh Woman Charged with Defrauding Two Companies

PITTSBURGH - A resident of Pittsburgh, PA, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of violating federal fraud laws, United States Attorney Scott W. Brady announced today.

The 12-count Indictment named Tracey Smith, 52, as the sole defendant.

According to the Indictment, Smith defrauded two different companies between January 2014 and March 2018. The Indictment alleges that Smith used company funds for personal expenses. The Indictment further alleges that Smith wired company funds to her personal bank account and attempted to conceal those transactions by accounting for them as payments to company vendors. The Indictment alleges that with respect to the first company, Smith used her company credit card to pay for personal expenses such as parochial school tuition, court fines, and automotive expenses. Smith was the company’s vice-president of finance at the time. The Indictment also alleges that after Smith’s position was terminated, she was hired by another company to be its Chief Financial Officer. Afterwards, Smith began to issue unauthorized payroll checks to herself. In order to conceal these payments, Smith recorded the checks as payments to the company’s vendors.

The law provides for a maximum total sentence of not more than 20 years in prison, a fine of no greater than $250,000.00, a term of supervised release no longer than three years, or a combination thereof. Under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, the actual sentence imposed would be based upon the seriousness of the offenses and the prior criminal history, if any, of the defendant.

Assistant United States Attorney Michael Leo Ivory is prosecuting this case on behalf of the government.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted the investigation leading to the Indictment in this case.

An indictment is an accusation. A defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.