TRENTON, N.J.– A Middlesex County, New Jersey, man today admitted his role in a scheme to embezzle $2.37 million from his employer while his was the company’s controller, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger announced.
Gerard Beauzile, 60, South Plainfield, New Jersey, pleaded guilty before Chief U.S. District Judge Freda L. Wolfson in Trenton federal court, an indictment charging him with one count of wire fraud.
According to documents filed in the case and statements made in court:
From 2014 through December 2020, Beauzile abused his position as controller of a New York-based company to embezzle funds by issuing fraudulent company checks to himself and then depositing those checks into his bank account for his own personal benefit. Beauzile issued approximately 140 company checks to himself with a total value of $2.37 million. Beauzile concealed the theft from the company by falsely entering the fraudulent checks into the company’s accounting system under various company vendor names as the payees, causing the accounting system to falsely reflect that the checks were made payable to company vendors instead of to Beauzile. He also falsified vendor invoices to correspond to the entries made in the accounting system, and company bank statements by removing and altering opening, running, and closing balances, check payment entries, summary check listings, and inter-account transfers.
The mail fraud charge carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Sentencing is scheduled for Nov.15, 2022.
U.S. Attorney Sellinger credited special agents of the FBI, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Jesse Levine in Newark, with the investigation leading to today’s guilty plea.
The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Blake Coppotelli of the U.S. Attorney’s Office Economic Crimes Unit.
Defense counsel: Laura Sayler Esq., Assistant Federal Public Defender