A former St. John’s financial adviser has been sentenced to two years in prison for stealing more than $700,000 from her doctor clients.
Joanne McCarthy, 54, must also pay restitution for the amounts she took by forging signatures on checks.
BREAKING || Former St. John’s financial adviser Joanne McCarthy has been sentenced to two years in prison for stealing more than $700,000 from doctor clients. Must also pay restitution for amounts taken by forging their signatures on checks. @VOCMNEWS
— Brian Callahan (@briancallahan67) July 6, 2022
McCarthy was an account manager at the St. John branch of MD Management, which handles financial planning for doctors, when he stole the money over a 13-year period between 2006 and 2019.
It has already been fined more than a million dollars by the federal regulator and permanently banned from doing business in the industry again.
McCarthy, who is married with two grown children, also faces a civil lawsuit brought by Royal Bank, where she deposited 161 fraudulent checks.
The two-year sentence – a joint statement by the Crown and defense – is at the lower end of the range for similar offences.
But Judge James Walsh took into account that McCarthy pleaded guilty at the first opportunity and took full responsibility for what she had done, adding that the restitution order made the sentence appropriate.
McCarthy appeared in court today carrying a suitcase awaiting a prison sentence and was held for the first time since criminal charges were first laid last year.
She apologized to her family, colleagues and friends, saying she committed the crimes while going through troubling emotional and financial times herself.
It is not yet clear where McCarthy will serve his sentence, which depends on prison officials.
She was technically sentenced to two years plus one day, which is a federal sentence, but those have been served in this province in the past.
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