DECATUR - A 38-year-old Decatur woman has been sentenced to four years and three months in federal prison on her guilty pleas to one count each of mail fraud and tax evasion for embezzling $1,053,504 from Dowd Development Co. Inc. between 1999 and 2006.

Jennifer L. Campbell was sentenced Tuesday in Peoria by U.S. District Judge Joe Billy McDade on the blind guilty pleas she entered Feb. 2, meaning she had no prior agreement with the U.S. attorney on what her sentence would be. The 51-month sentences were given for each count but will be served concurrently.

Tim Dowd, a principal in the development company, said that despite McDade ordering Campbell to pay full restitution for the money she took, he does not expect to see much of the cash.

"She'll die before it's all repaid," Dowd said. The judge did not order any interest be paid on the money.

McDade said Campbell also must serve five years on supervised release once her prison term is completed on the mail fraud charge and three years supervised release on the tax evasion charge, with those terms to run concurrently.

Campbell must report to the Federal Bureau of Prisons on Aug. 18 to begin serving her sentence. Persons convicted in federal courts must serve 100 percent of their prison terms.

Charges of theft over $500,000 initially were filed against Campbell in Macon County Circuit Court in 2006 but dismissed in 2007 after federal prosecutors agreed to take the case.

Federal charges stated Campbell wrote checks payable to herself on business accounts and then failed to accurately enter those checks into the books and records of Dowd Development. She issued the checks to herself in an amount equal to what one of the business partners was to receive.

Campbell then changed the identity of the payee in the company's check register maintained on the business computer. She also forged the drawer's signature on the checks.

The fraudulent checks were deposited into bank accounts under Campbell's name, and she diverted bank statements and canceled checks to a post office box she controlled. She removed canceled checks reflecting the diverted income from the firm's bank statements to conceal the fraud.

Prosecutors alleged Campbell used the stolen funds to buy items such as jewelry, vehicles and home improvements.

She failed to report the stolen funds as income on her 2005 income tax return, prosecutors said.

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