Garden Grove man who stole $1.8 million from Anaheim real estate firm sentenced to prison

A judge sentenced a Garden Grove man who admitted funneling and then pocketing more than $1.8 million from the Anaheim-based commercial real estate company he worked for to 30 months behind bars on Monday, June 29.

Duy Duc Nguyen, 38, had pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud on Jan. 17, representatives for the U.S. Attorney’s office said in a news release. He started working as an accounts payable clerk for Milan Capital Management in 2014, and was accused of embezzling from the company between Jan. 2015 through March 2018.

Nguyen stole a password from Milan Capital’s treasurer, then accessed the company’s accounting system. He proceeded to divert payments that had been intended for vendors and directed those to his own accounts instead. He then went on to alter company records and lied to executives regarding complaints of unpaid invoices in an attempt to conceal the theft.

Milan Capital ultimately made duplicate payments in order to satisfy its vendors, while Nguyen used stolen funds for personal expenses, officials said. He was fired in December 2017, but was somehow able to continue funneling money from the company until his fraudulent activities were discovered in March 2018.

The defendant initially was indicted on six counts of wire fraud, but pleaded guilty to just one as part of a plea agreement filed in January. He has been ordered to return the sum total of the money he stole to Milan Capital, in addition to his federal prison sentence.

The public defender who represented Nguyen was not immediately available for comment.

from https://ift.tt/eA8V8J Orange County Register https://ift.tt/2VuX56d