Former Executive Assistant Charged and Agrees to Plead Guilty in Connection with Embezzling $3M

[TexasTowelie]

Former Executive Assistant Charged and Agrees to Plead Guilty in Connection with Embezzling over $3 Million


BOSTON – The former executive assistant of a Waltham-based technology company has been charged and agreed to plead guilty in connection with a fraud and embezzlement scheme that netted over $3 million.

Shivani Patel, 38, of Vineyard Haven, was charged with bank fraud, money laundering and filing false tax returns. A plea hearing has not yet been scheduled by the Court. According to the terms of the plea agreement, the government will recommend a sentence of 57 months in prison, three years of supervised release, a fine between $20,000 and $200,000, restitution and forfeiture.

According to court documents, as an executive assistant to the chief financial officer, Patel’s duties included retrieving incoming mail containing customer checks made payable to her employer, recording the checks into the payment system, and depositing the checks into her employer’s bank account.

From at least February 2012 through July 2017, Patel embezzled approximately $3,076,369 from her then employer for her personal use. Specifically, in February 2012, Patel created a company with a name nearly identical to that of her then employer — i.e., using her employer’s name but just adding an “s” to the end — and opened a business banking account in the sham company’s name. Thereafter, Patel took customer checks payable to her employer from the mail, deposited those checks into the sham company’s bank account, and concealed her embezzlement by making false entries in her employer’s billing system. To disguise and conceal the nature of these funds, Patel funneled this money through multiple bank accounts.

In addition, Patel filed income tax returns for the tax years 2012 through 2016 in which she intentionally underreported her income by failing to disclose the money she had stolen from her employer.

Read more: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/former-executive-assistant-charged-and-agrees-plead-guilty-connection-embezzling-over-3