Indian-origin man sentenced to 33 months in US-prison over embezzlement
What's the story
An Indian-origin man has been sentenced to nearly three years in prison and ordered to pay $2.6 million in restitution for being convicted of mail fraud and embezzlement (theft of employer's funds). Dinesh Shankar, 41 of San Jose, California was sentenced to 33 months in prison as a result of the mail fraud conviction for embezzling from a medical device company. Details here.
Details
Shankar will begin serving the sentence from May this year
In addition to the prison sentence and the $2.6 million restitution, Shankar was also ordered to serve a three-year term of supervised release, US-Attorney David Anderson said. Shankar will begin serving the sentence on May 1'19. According to the plea agreement, from March 2013 until January 2018, Shankar was an employee of a medical device company. He began submitting false reports from July 2013.
False invoices
Shankar submitted false expense reports, invoices to company's finance department
Beginning July 2013 until December 2017, Shankar submitted false expense reports and false invoices to the company's finance department, causing the company to pay more than half a million dollars in excess of the legitimate expenses and expenditures for services provided to the company. In addition, Shankar admitted that he created false invoices that appeared to be issued by six different entities.
Loss
Shankar caused about $2.5 million total loss to the company
The invoices were issued by entities that were actually fictitious business names for the entities that Shankar controlled. He prepared the false invoices to make it appear that the entities provided testing and quality assurance services to his employer when, in fact, they had not provided the services. Shankar admitted he caused a total loss to the company of about $2.5 million.
Information
Federal grand jury indicted Shankar in April last year
A federal grand jury indicted Shankar in April last year charging him with six counts of mail fraud. He pleaded guilty to one count in November and the remaining counts were dismissed. The prosecution of Shankar is the result of an investigation by the FBI.