A former executive at a New Jersey publication company was sentenced today to 75 months in prison for embezzling tens of millions of dollars for his own benefit, Acting U.S. Attorney Rachael A. Honig announced.
According to Acting U.S. Attorney Honig, Nestor Charriez, 60, of Scotch Plains, previously pleaded guilty to an information charging him with devising and carrying out a scheme to commit wire fraud.
According to the charging document and statements made in court:
Charriez was a longtime senior employee of Victim-Company 1, a publication company based in New Jersey. Charriez’s financial responsibilities at Victim-Company 1 included overseeing and managing employee payroll.
Charriez would submit Victim-Company 1’s payroll information to an outside payroll company, which would process Victim-Company 1’s payroll requests.
Beginning as early as 2002 through June 2019, Charriez defrauded Victim-Company 1 by embezzling millions of dollars through unauthorized “bonus” payments to himself.
He submitted false payroll instructions to Victim-Company 1’s outside payroll provider, indicating that Charriez was entitled to massive bonuses – hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time – which Victim-Company 1 had not approved.
Charriez carried out this scheme on numerous occasions over nearly two decades. In total, Charriez stole more than $48 million from Victim-Company 1. Charriez spent the money he stole on personal expenses.
In addition to the prison term, Charriez was also sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to pay restitution of $43.4 million. The court previously entered a forfeiture order of $48 million.