Former Albany County Employee Sentenced for Stealing Government Funds

ALBANY, NEW YORK - John T. Cox, age 62, of Schenectady, New York, was sentenced today to 2 years of probation, including 180 days of home confinement, for mail fraud and stealing money from a federally funded governmental agency.

United States Attorney Carla B. Freedman; Craig L. Tremaroli, Special Agent in Charge of the Albany Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); and Ryan T. Geach, Special Agent in Charge of the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (DOJ OIG) Northeast Region, made the announcement.

As part of his previously entered guilty plea, Cox admitted that between June 2017 and February 2023, while employed as a Budget Analyst in the Albany County Sheriff's Office (ACSO), he stole $122,251.25 by issuing 16 fraudulent checks drawn on funds in the care of the ACSO, an agency that received more than $10,000 in federal funding each year during this time period.

Cox used the checks to pay himself directly or to pay down his line of credit. Cox then tried to cover up his fraud by falsifying ACSO records to suggest that the funds were being used for legitimate purposes such as vehicle and equipment purchases. Cox stole some of the money from a Department of Justice program in which the federal government shares the proceeds of federal asset forfeitures with state and local law enforcement agencies.

United States District Judge Mae A. D'Agostino also imposed a $5,500 fine and ordered Cox to pay $122,251.25 in restitution to the ACSO.

The FBI, DOJ OIG, and ACSO investigated the case with valuable assistance from the Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section of the Department of Justice's Criminal Division. Assistant U.S. Attorney Joshua R. Rosenthal prosecuted the case.