PROVIDENCE — The former owner of a title insurance firm in East Providence pleaded guilty yesterday to a federal fraud charge for looting more than $1.3 million from company accounts and using the money for vacations, hair care, cosmetics and clothing.

Angela Raposo, 32, of 1 Peach Orchard Drive, Riverside, entered the plea before U.S. District Judge William E. Smith, who released her on $25,000 unsecured bond and scheduled sentencing for April 17.

Raposo faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The FBI launched an investigation into the missing money in April 2007 amid allegations that Raposo and her husband, Marco Raposo, may have emptied more than $800,000 from client accounts at Title America Closing Services LLC, at 855 Waterman Ave.

Thomas Connell, spokesman for U.S. Attorney Robert Clark Corrente, said there is no evidence that Marco Raposo had anything to do with the scheme.

At a plea hearing last month, Andrew J. Reich, an assistant U.S. Attorney, told the court that the government could prove that between February 2006 and February 2007, Raposo wrote checks and used a debit card against her company’s escrow account to pay for a variety of personal expenses. Those expenses included mortgage payments, residential utility bills, hair salon fees, cosmetics, clothing, personal trips, a car and payments to relatives.

The proceeds from real estate deals were deposited into an escrow account and they were supposed to be used for disbursement for real estate closings, primarily to pay off existing mortgages.

Title America was a limited agent that issued title insurance policies and acted as the mortgage transfer agent for Stewart Title Guaranty Co., in Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Maine.

In March 2007, Stewart Title filed a civil lawsuit in Superior Court, Providence, against Title America and the Raposos. According to an affidavit, the office manager for Title America called a manager for Stewart Title and said “we have a problem.”

The officer manager, Catherine MacDougall, told the Stewart Title manager that she had to pay off about $700,000 in mortgages, but that there was only $175,000 in Title America’s escrow account. The affidavit noted that the Raposos had an “outstanding payoff” of $262,970 on another mortgage that they used to finance their home in Riverside.

As the underwriter, Stewart Title had to pay off mortgages totaling $1,301,826 from the Raposos’ mortgage and four others including one in Brea, Calif., and another in Richmond, R.I.

Around the time the problems surfaced, McDougall, who is Angela Raposo’s sister, said in the affidavit that Raposo was in a drug-rehabilitation program seeking treatment for an addiction to painkillers.

The Raposo plea marks the second time in recent weeks that a Rhode Islander has gotten into trouble over the embezzlement of clients’ money. Last month, lawyer Edward F. St. Onge, 64, of Providence, was suspended from the bar for 18 months for “callous indifference” to the obligations of his clients. He was accused of taking unauthorized fees from four people and making payments to third parties without permission.

Connell, the spokesman for U.S. Attorney Corrente, said that despite the episodes involving Raposo and others, there is no evidence that there is an uptick in embezzlement-related charges in a poor economic climate.

“We see a steady stream of these types of cases,” Connell said. “We can’t say with certainty that there has been an increase” in recent months.

bmalinow@projo.com