Former Kentucky accounting firm employee guilty in $363,657 theft from a client.

A Central Kentucky woman has admitted stealing more than $300,000 from a client she worked for as a bookkeeper.

Irene Michelle Fike pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court to one charge each of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

According to her plea document, Fike worked at an accounting firm in Winchester from 2016 to 2021, and as part of her job had access to financial information on a client identified in the document as J.M.

Fike, of Winchester, did bookkeeping work for J.M. and her family.

J.M. lived in Lexington at the time but later moved to South Carolina.

After Fike left the accounting firm in the fall of 2021, J.M. hired her as an independent contractor to help with paying bills, bookkeeping and other matters, according to the court record.

Fike used QuickBooks software to create and update financial records for J.M., the court record says.

Fike admitted that from April 2018 through September 2022, she used money from J.M.’s bank accounts to pay Fike’s American Express credit card bills totaling $224,349.

She also used information from J.M.’s credit cards to buy things for herself, according to the plea agreement.

Those purchases totaled $139,307, bringing the total loss to J.M. to $363,657, the court record said.

Fike fudged the QuickBooks reports she generated to avoid raising the suspicion of J.M.’s family members, who sometimes reviewed the statements, according to court documents.

Fike was charged with wire fraud because she made online payments. The identify theft charge was based on her use of the identification of J.M.

The wire fraud charge is punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Identify theft in federal court carries a mandatory two-year sentence on top of any sentence for other crimes.

U.S. District Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove scheduled Fike to be sentenced in May.