Middlesex County Man Sentenced to 27 Months in Prison for Embezzling $2.37 Million From his Employer while the Controller of Company

TRENTON, N.J.- A Middlesex County, New Jersey, man was sentenced to 27 months in prison for 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 today.

Gerard Beauzile, 63, South Plainfield, New Jersey, pleaded guilty before former Chief U.S. District Judge Freda L. Wolfson, an indictment charging him with one count of wire fraud. U.S. District Judge Michael A. Shipp imposed the sentence on March 26, 2024, in Trenton federal court.

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.

In addition to the prison term, Judge Shipp sentenced Beauzile to three years of supervised release and ordered restitution of $2.37 million and forfeiture of $2.37 million.

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.