Real Estate Employee Embezzles $1M To Buy Cars, Trips, Clothes, Taylor Swift Tickets

ELLICOTT CITY, MD — A Howard County woman has pleaded guilty to a federal charge of wire fraud after prosecutors say she embezzled more than $1 million from a real estate agency and used the funds for vacations, to buy clothes and five vehicles, and purchase Taylor Swift tickets.

According to her guilty plea, between January 2020 and November 2023, Jennifer Tinker, 41, of Ellicott City defrauded a real estate agency that she worked for by transferring more than $1 million of company funds through wire transfers, Zelle payments, checks and ACH to her personal bank accounts. Tinker fraudulently embezzled funds from the real estate agency’s accounts that included its escrow, operating and commission accounts, prosecutors said.

Tinker hid the transfers by listing fake recipients on the wire transfer paperwork to make them appear legitimate. She then wired the stolen funds into her personal bank accounts. Between approximately February 2021 and November 2023, Tinker wired money to her personal accounts more than 90 times. Tinker also made false and fraudulent edits and entries into her employer’s internal accounting records to conceal the transfers, court documents showed.

Tinker faces a maximum of 20 years in prison followed by up to a lifetime of supervised release. Sentencing has been scheduled for April 10.