Federal authorities locked up Robert Eric Fockler, 58, of Fort Mill, South Carolina, for a five-year scam that bled Lexmark International dry. Convicted of wire fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1343, Fockler was sentenced to 37 months in federal prison, followed by three years of supervised release. The Columbia, South Carolina, court also ordered him to pay $263,457 in restitution.
Fockler didn’t just exploit his position—he weaponized it. As a customer service manager at Lexmark, he spent October 2008 to December 2013 orchestrating a dual-track fraud scheme. First, he fabricated invoices, making it look like subcontractors had performed legitimate work. Then, he routed those fake bills through a friend’s billing service to Unigroup, a third-party vendor that did business with Lexmark. The invoices slipped through—each one a lie, each one paid in real dollars.
But that wasn’t enough. Fockler padded his take with a steady stream of falsified expense reports. Fake hotel stays, phantom airline tickets, made-up restaurant tabs—he filed them all, billing Lexmark for trips he never took and meals he never ate. Over five years, the scam funneled more than $285,000 out of the company’s coffers and into his pockets.
Feds say the fraud only unraveled when internal audits flagged irregular billing patterns. The FBI launched a probe, peeling back layers of deception that included shell invoicing, third-party intermediaries, and falsified corporate records. Evidence presented at Fockler’s change of plea hearing painted a clear picture: this was no accounting error. It was a calculated, sustained theft.
Sentencing was handled by Senior United States District Judge Cameron McGowan Curry in Columbia federal court. Acting U.S. Attorney Beth Drake underscored the severity of corporate fraud that undermines business integrity. “Stealing under the guise of legitimacy is still stealing,” Drake said in a statement. “And it still carries federal time.”
Assistant United States Attorney William E. Day II, who prosecuted the case from the Columbia office, emphasized that white-collar crimes aren’t victimless. Lexmark, a multinational tech firm, absorbed the financial hit—but so did shareholders, employees, and honest operations. Fockler’s scheme may have been paper-thin in ethics, but the consequences are concrete: 37 months behind bars, and a debt that won’t vanish with a receipt.”
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Key Facts
- State: South Carolina
- Agency: DOJ USAO
- Category: Fraud & Financial Crimes
- Source: Official Source ↗
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