Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Woman Indicted in Noah Pozner Fundraising Scam

A 37-year-old New York woman was indicted by a federal grand jury Tuesday on charges she lied to federal agents investigating fraudulent fundraising schemes tied to the Sandy Hook school shooting.

Noah Pozner

Authorities say Nouel Alba used her Facebook account, telephone calls and text messages to falsely claim she was an aunt of one of the children fatally shot during the Dec. 14 massacre at the school that killed 20 children and 6 teachers.

The indictment states Alba supplied fictitious details about the tragedy on her Facebook page in order to solicit donations on the pretense she was collecting money for the child’s funeral fund.

When contacted by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents probing reports of fraudulent fundraising following the shooting, Alba claimed not to have posted any information related to Newtown on her Facebook account, or to have solicited donations or recently accessed her PayPal account, authorities said.

Authorities also charge that she claimed falsely to have immediately refunded donations that she received.

Alba was charged with one count of making false statements to federal agents, which carries a sentence of five years and a fine of up to $250,000. She was arrested on the criminal complaint on Dec. 27 and released on a $50,000 bond.

A probable cause hearing had been set for Wednesday. A judge has yet to rule on her public defender’s request for a continuance.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.