Gloucester County Woman Sentenced to Prison for Hiding $100,000 from Bankruptcy Proceedings

TRENTON – Acting Attorney General John J. Hoffman and the Office of the Insurance Fraud Prosecutor (OIFP) announced that a Gloucester County woman was sentenced to five years in state prison after admitting she concealed from her personal bankruptcy filings a $100,000 gift she received from the estate of a deceased former resident of a long-term care facility where she worked.

Deborah Campbell, 58, of Williamstown, was sentenced by Gloucester County Superior Court Judge Christine Allen-Jackson. In addition to her prison sentence, Campbell will also have her license from the Board of Nursing suspended for three years. 

In 2011, Campbell served as the director of nursing at Oceanview Center for Rehabilitation and Continuing Care in Cape May and in September of that year she received notice a deceased former resident left her a $100,000 gift in his will. The administrator of the estate notified Campbell that she would receive the gift in two after-tax installments of $42,500. She received the installments in November 2011 and March 2012. On March 16, 2012, a day after the second check was dated, Campbell filed for personal bankruptcy (Chapter 7), claiming $96,000 in personal debt.

Campbell falsified her bankruptcy petition in a variety of ways by leaving out the following information:

• that she had received the first disbursement of the gift and that she had knowledge she would be receiving the second. 

• that she had opened a bank account and had been using it for transactions involving the gift monies.

• that she was a party to a contract to purchase an in-ground pool and that she had made a payment of $21,000 towards the pool.

• that she transferred a car out of her name to that of her live-in girlfriend who used the proceeds from the sale of that car to purchase a vehicle valued at nearly $80,000. 

Campbell received a final decree in bankruptcy in August 2012, discharging her of more than $75,000 in personal debt.