A former top financial official at a Washington health insurance company has been sentenced to prison for embezzling over $630,000 from his employer.
Zachary Augustus Smulski, the former Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Soundpath Health, was sentenced to a year and a day in prison for embezzlement, according to a press release from U.S. Attorney Annette L. Hayes.
The embezzlement was part of a complex wire fraud scheme that Smulski used to fund his own start-up companies, the release stated.
Smulski, 58, used the funds received under a leaseback program to accounts he established for a start-up company he was developing, while passing some of the funding back to Soundpath Health, but retaining $631,500 for his personal business endeavors.
He used fake accounting documents to conceal the embezzlement, and it was only after the Soundpath Health Comptroller started questioning some of the financial records in the midst of a state audit that Smulski suddenly delivered a check from the start-up account to Soundpath Health to repay the $631,500.
Smulski had used more than $20,000 of Soundpath Health’s money to pay business expenses of his start-up.
Today, Smulski paid $29,514 in restitution to Soundpath Health.
U.S. District Judge Robert S. Lasnik imposed three years of supervised release to follow prison and told Smulski, “it was a crime done for selfish reasons.”
The case was investigated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — Office of Inspector General and the FBI. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Francis Franze-Nakamura.
The embezzlement was a crime that occurred in 2011, when Smulski was hired as the CFO of Soundpath Health in 2008 and initiated a leaseback program to improve the company’s cash reserves.
Key Facts
- State: Washington
- Category: White Collar Crime
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
ðŸâ€Â’ Get the grimiest stories delivered weekly. Subscribe free →
