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Compliance March 3, 2020
Former Pension Fund Trustee to Pay $462K for Embezzlement
The trustee embezzled approximately $186,123.93 from the plan, as well as knowingly and willingly failed to file a required annual report for the CMG pension plan.
Reported by Rebecca Moore
The U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey has sentenced a former pension plan trustee to 30 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release and ordered him to pay $462,049 in restitution for embezzling funds from the plan sponsored by CMG Vending Inc. in Union City, New Jersey. The court also fined him $10,000.
The court sentenced the former trustee after he pleaded guilty in June 2019 to one count of theft, embezzlement and conversion to his own use or the use of another money and funds of an employee pension benefits plan.
Investigators from the New York Regional Office of the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL)’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) and the Office of Inspector General (OIG) found that from on or about September 2013, to April 2018, the man served as a plan trustee for CMG Vending Inc. Pension Trust Fund. During this time, he embezzled approximately $186,123.93 from the employee pension benefit plan.
Additionally, from on or about January to July 2016, he knowingly and willingly failed to file the required annual report for the CMG pension plan.
Both acts violated the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA).