Interior designer scams customers out of $900,000 to fund her lifestyle, feds say
A Montana interior designer profited off of her false promises to customers, defrauding them out of $900,000, federal prosecutors said. Now, she’s going to prison.
Since 2016, more than 20 of Jennifer Michele Helm’s clients paid her thousands of dollars, believing that she’d order furnishings and fixtures as she promised, according to federal prosecutors.
However, Helm had a habit of “ghosting” customers once she received their money, according to a website warning of her “lies & tactics.”
Instead of ordering items for clients, she used their money to support her lifestyle — funding her personal and business expenses, according to an indictment.
On one occasion, two customers, who were married, trusted Helm to purchase items for them with their credit card, prosecutors said. Then, she used their credit card to make purchases for herself, according to prosecutors.
The sentence
On March 14, Helm was sentenced to four years and three months in prison, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Montana announced in a March 15 news release.
In November, she pleaded guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, according to prosecutors.
She must pay $933,679 restitution as part of her sentencing, which will be followed by three years of supervised release, prosecutors said.
McClatchy News contacted her court-appointed defense attorney, David A. Mattingley, for comment March 18 and didn’t receive an immediate response.
Helm ran her interior design business, based in Whitefish, under a few different companies: Sage Interior Designs, LLC, Interior Design Services, and Jennifer Michele Interiors LLC, prosecutors said.
The website that warns customers to “watch out” for Helm’s “tricks” accused her of continuing her scheme by creating new companies.
“She does not order the furniture or follow through on any services,” the website says.
Helm would show her customers invoices for interior design items “she had not ordered and that clients never received,” prosecutors said.
In a sentencing memorandum submitted on her behalf, Mattingley requested the court consider “the shortest possible sentence of incarceration” for Helm for the charge of wire fraud, “followed by three years of supervised release.”
He wrote that she began experiencing issues with her business “that prevented her from maintaining her livelihood just prior to 2017,” the sentencing memo says.
This coupled with how Helm struggles with short-term memory following a stroke she had in 2007 that “made it easier to personally rationalize defrauding some of her clients,” Mattingley wrote.
Mattingley also wrote that it is unlikely Helm will commit the same crime — one he said was “was born out of alcohol/marijuana addiction and poor decision-making” — in the future.
“Prison is not needed to deter Ms. Helm — she has been deterred by her time spent in federal custody,” Mattingley argued.
According to prosecutors, Helm continued her scheme after a few customers she defrauded spoke out about her scam.
Following an interview with the FBI, Helm scammed four more people, the attorney’s office said.
“She presumably knew she was a target of a federal criminal investigation,” according to prosecutors, who argued in support of a sentence between four years and three months, and four years and nine months.
Whitefish is about a 200-mile drive northwest from Helena, the capital of Montana.
Social Security employee steals $1.8 million in funds by filing fake claims, feds say
Scammers convince Michigan casino employee to give them $700,000, feds say
Church employee steals $360,000, uses pastor’s credit card to buy jewelry, feds say
Postal worker sells USPS key, then hundreds of pieces of mail are stolen, feds say
