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NEW YORK, April 21 (Reuters) - Two former employees of a New York investment firm were found guilty on Tuesday of helping to run a Ponzi scheme that bilked around 3,800 investors out of about $147 million, authorities said.

Diane Kaylor and Jason Keryc, former employees of Long Island-based Agape World Inc, were convicted by a federal jury in Central Islip, New York, of charges that included securities fraud, conspiracy and mail fraud, according to a statement from U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York.

Prosecutors described the case against the two, who worked as account representatives and brokers at Agape and were characterized as playing critical roles in defrauding unwitting investors, as a classic Ponzi scheme.

Lasting from October 2005 to January 2009, the scheme pulled in more than $370 million by promising unrealistic returns on investors' money, the prosecutors said.

In typical Ponzi fashion, some returns to investors were paid, not from any profits earned on investments, but from existing investors' deposits or money paid by new investors.

"The defendants gained the trust of investors and then betrayed that trust to feed their insatiable appetites for money," U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch said in the statement released by her office.

It said Keryc made nearly $9 million off the scheme while Kaylor pocketed about $3.4 million.

The founder of Hauppague-based Agape, Nicholas Cosmo, was sentenced to 25 years in prison in October after pleading guilty to the scheme.

(Reporting by Tom Brown; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)