A former Ameriprise Monetary advisor in Wichita Falls, Texas, is scheduled for sentencing later this month after pleading responsible to a fraud scheme during which she took greater than $1.2 million from shoppers.

Dusty Sternadel pleaded responsible to wire fraud in January in U.S. District Court docket for the Northern District of Texas and is scheduled to be sentenced on the federal courthouse in Fort Price on April 26. She signed a plea settlement in December.

A choose this week denied her legal professional’s request to postpone sentencing to provide the previous advisor extra time to acquire the practically $122,000 wanted to guard her household house from forfeiture, in keeping with court docket data.

From roughly September 2019 to July 2022, “Sternadel engaged in a scheme to defraud Ameriprise shoppers by tricking them into sending her funds or checks underneath false representations and pretenses after which depositing them in her personal accounts at monetary establishments for her private use,” in keeping with particulars that authorities and protection attorneys reported in reference to the plea settlement.

In a single occasion, for instance, Sternadel initiated a wire switch from a shopper’s Ameriprise account to their checking account, then informed the shopper that the funding agency had mistakenly transferred another person’s cash.

Sternadel instructed the shopper to jot down a test for the purported quantity and produce it to her, in keeping with a “factual resume” related to the plea. “On the premise of Sternadel’s misrepresentation, Sufferer 1 wrote a test for $26,916 and gave it to Sternadel, who deposited it into her personal (enterprise) checking account at a monetary establishment. She then used these funds for private bills.

“Sternadel admits that she acted with the precise intent to defraud, that’s, to deceive and cheat an individual out of cash or property,” in keeping with the court docket doc, which cites 10 different victims.