Nicole Chambers, the former office manager of The Dartmouth, was sentenced today to 15 months in prison and three years of supervised release — the maximum sentence under her plea agreement — for embezzling more than $223,000 from the student newspaper between April 2017 and September 2021. Chief Judge Landya McCafferty delivered the sentence in federal court in Concord, N.H.
Chambers, who served as the paper’s office manager from 2012 until her resignation in Dec. 2021, previously pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in April 2024.
After students at the newspaper discovered and reported missing funds to the Hanover Police Department, the FBI launched an investigation — finding that Chambers had used The Dartmouth’s PayPal and Venmo accounts to make unauthorized transfers to her personal accounts. Chambers also used the newspaper’s debit card for unauthorized purchases, including personal trips, legal fees for her husband, a mattress and an iPad, according to the prosecution’s sentencing memo.
Chambers’s plea deal set a suggested sentence between zero and 15 months. At her plea hearing in April, Chambers was also ordered to pay The Dartmouth the full $223,372.51 stolen in restitution, according to previous reporting by The Dartmouth. At the sentencing hearing, McCafferty suggested that Chambers pay in $50 installments, to begin after she is released from prison. The installment amount is subject to be revised based on Chambers’s future financial condition.
“We are appreciative that the court imposed a fair and just sentence that takes into account the breadth of Ms. Chambers’s crime and the damage that she caused to The Dartmouth,” Assistant United States Attorney Alexander Chen, who prosecuted the case, said in an interview after the sentencing.
During his opening remarks, Chen described Chambers's actions as “well-thought-out and executed schemes” that caused “great harm to the organization,” requesting that Chambers face the maximum sentence of 15 months. He further argued that the severity of Chambers’s crime “is compounded by the fact that the defendant stole from a nonprofit student newspaper.”
Former editor-in-chief of The Dartmouth Kyle Khan-Mullins ’22 — who was serving as editor-in-chief when Chambers’s theft was discovered — also requested a 15-month sentence in his victim impact statement. He stated that The Dartmouth is “utterly essential to campus life,” keeping the College and Hanover communities informed and “holding one of the wealthiest and most powerful institutions in the state, Dartmouth College, to account.”
“Nicole’s fraud, which weakened The Dartmouth, thus made victims of the community the newspaper serves,” Khan-Mullins said. “…Nicole, for years, your constant theft crippled the paper’s finances and wasted countless people’s time and energy in trying to stop the losses — and, after it was discovered, in trying to clean up the mess you made.”
Jaye Rancourt, a public defender who served as Chambers’s defense attorney, requested that Chambers face six months of home confinement, three years of probation and restitution, noting that this was Chambers’s first criminal conviction. Rancourt argued that Chambers’s “tumultuous childhood” and undiagnosed bipolar disorder should have factored into a more lenient sentencing. The defense further claimed that Chambers was undergoing manic episodes that resulted in “poor judgment and risky behavior.”
The defense added that Chambers would be unable to make progress in restitution payments if incarcerated.
Although Chambers was present, she did not speak during the hearing. In a statement read by her defense attorney, Chambers expressed the “deepest remorse” for her actions and “accepted full responsibility” for her crime. She further claimed that her mental health issues “significantly affected her life.”
Olivia Gomez ’22, the former publisher of The Dartmouth, said in her victim impact statement that Chambers “held a critical position of huge trust” and made herself crucial to the business by isolating each directorate from the next.
“Nicole took advantage of our inexperience,” Gomez — who was publisher when Chambers’s theft was discovered — said. “She used her position of trust to manipulate and deceive students, allowing her to steal with abandon.”
Besides losing money, the paper was forced to “piec[e] together information [Chambers] destroyed,” Gomez said.
“I woke up to find that we couldn’t even do our jobs — Nicole had erased hundreds of contacts, all historical financial records, all of the emails, even the PayPal account associated with The D,” she said. “…I vividly remember sitting in my office and calling contacts one by one: ‘Do I owe you money, or do you owe me?’”
During the hearing, McCafferty said she thought “long and hard” about the sentencing. She explained that she would have considered a more lenient sentence had Chambers saved money to pay for restitution in the three years since resigning from the newspaper — adding that this action would have been a “gesture of genuine remorse.”
“Otherwise, you come to my courtroom with nothing,” McCafferty said.
Along with Chambers’s failure to set aside money for restitution, McCafferty mentioned the length of Chambers’ theft — four-and-a-half years — which she said did not suggest impulsive conduct resulting from untreated mental health issues.
“As difficult as this is, I hope today is a small step forward for The Dartmouth,” United States Attorney Jane Young said in an interview after the sentencing.
Chambers will be required to report to the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Conn. by 2 p.m. on Oct. 18, 2024 to begin her 15-month sentence.
Update Appended (Sept. 16, 7:32 p.m.): This article has been updated with additional information regarding Chambers’s sentencing.
