NORRISTOWN — The former office manager for a health and wellness center in Abington Township is headed to jail, and she has a hefty restitution bill for embezzling $1.2 million from the business.
Jamie Eleanor Fox, 36, who listed addresses in the 6900 block of Old York Road and in Philadelphia, was sentenced in Montgomery County Court to 6 to 23 months in the county jail after she pleaded guilty to felony charges of theft by deception and unlawful use of a computer in connection with thefts that occurred over the course of seven years while she worked as the office manager at Schwartz Total Wellness in Abington.
Judge Thomas M. DelRicci ordered Fox to pay $1.2 million in restitution to the owner of the business and to otherwise have no contact with him.
At the time of sentencing, Fox had not paid anything toward restitution.
DelRicci also ordered Fox to complete three years of probation, consecutive to her parole. The judge added that Fox is eligible for early termination of probation after serving two years, but only if she has paid a minimum of 25% of the restitution.
With the charges, authorities alleged Fox was responsible for receiving and managing payments from patients who were treated at the facility and stole funds to support a gambling addiction and a “lavish lifestyle.”
Assistant District Attorney Gwendolyn Marie Kull argued for a county jail sentence for Fox, in accordance with state sentencing guidelines.
“The victim business in this case suffered. It’s a small business and the owner of that business suffered personally and the entire time, couldn’t make sense of why this was happening until he uncovered her theft,” Kull said.
“She took advantage of not only her position but of a kind person who was employing her. He felt very hurt and betrayed. He felt in disbelief because someone he had trusted did this under his very nose and it hurt him and it hurt his business and he’s doing all he can to recover from her actions,” Kull added.
Prosecutors alleged Fox used the majority of the stolen funds to fuel a gambling addiction. Testimony also revealed she spent money on gifts for friends and relatives.
Kull argued, and the judge agreed, that it wasn’t Fox’s money to give; that she was generous with someone else’s money.
Kull, referring to statements Fox allegedly made to presentence investigators during which she suggested she felt she was not appreciated at work, argued the theft wasn’t a mistake but a deliberate, spiteful act.
“I argued that it was deliberate, that it was intentional, that it was spiteful and that she did it with malice,” Kull said.
When Fox pleaded guilty to the charges in June, defense lawyer Anthony Francis Godshall, seeking something less than total confinement for Fox, sought a house arrest suitability study for the admitted thief. But court officials determined Fox was not eligible for the house arrest program.
Kull also opposed house arrest for Fox.
Fox carried out the scheme by altering a QuickBooks account to make it appear the funds were going to the business when, in fact, they were going to her personal accounts.
Authorities alleged the thefts occurred between January 2017 and June 2024, when she was fired from the business.
Fox had an annual salary of $21,523.
“Analysis of her bank accounts and gambling clearly showed she had much more money than she was legally earning,” Abington Township Detective Elizabeth Kelley Cartwright wrote in a criminal complaint.
The investigation began in June 2024, when the owner of the Total Wellness business reported to Abington police that while reviewing financial records for the business, he uncovered that there appeared to have been services rendered that had not been paid for over the course of several years, according to a criminal complaint filed by Cartwright.
When the owner contacted patients, he learned that all the payments were made to and handled by Fox, who was responsible for coordinating appointments and handling payments made by patients.
The investigation revealed Fox used a QuickBooks account to conduct all of the transactions, an account that the business owner had never authorized to be opened and of which he had no knowledge, detectives said.
Payments collected by Fox via QuickBooks were then routed to her personal bank account, according to court documents.
For example, from January to December 2018, Fox processed 208 transactions from 66 patients, totaling $108,123 and transferred those funds from the QuickBooks account to her personal checking account.
“None of these funds were ever forwarded or provided to Total Wellness,” Cartwright alleged.
Detectives reviewed the QuickBooks transactions made by Fox from 2017 through June 2024 and determined she processed a total of 2,418 payments from about 600 patients, depriving Total Wellness of $1,267,636.83, according to the arrest affidavit.
“This theft of funds was made possible due to the fact that the owner entrusted Fox to lawfully and properly collect patient payments and manage the office funds with no direct oversight,” Cartwright alleged.
“The defendant took this trust and lack of oversight by the office owner and stole hard-earned money in order to facilitate living a more lavish lifestyle for herself, which included an excessive amount of gambling,” Cartwright added.
A search of Fox’s bank statements showed thousands of transactions for sport betting-related activity through FanDuel, BetMGM, Valley Forge Casino and Rivers Casino, according to court documents.
In February 2023, Fox purchased a Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited for $63,930 and paid $20,000 of the price in cash, authorities alleged.
Other charges of forgery, access device fraud, dealing in proceeds of unlawful activity, receiving stolen property and tampering with records were dismissed against Fox.
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