William Gallagher
A former parts and services buyer at Apple has pleaded guilty to over $17 million in fraud against Apple, and now faces up to 20 years in jail.
Dhirendra Prasad was originally charged with fraud in March 2022, when it was alleged that he had obtained kickbacks, and made Apple pay for undelivered goods and services. Working in Apple's Global Service Supply Chain division, it was then claimed that he defrauded the company out of $10 million during his ten-year employment from 2008.
Now according to CNET, Prasad has pleaded guilty to the charges, and admitted to over $17 million in a written plea statement. His statement says that he began defrauding Apple in 2011 with schemes including inflating invoices.
Prasad worked with two co-conspirators, Robert Gary Hansen and Don M. Baker, who have both been charged and admitted their involvement. The three used a shell company to hide illicit payments, and reportedly also benefited from unjustified tax deductions in the process.
CNET says that Prasad has agreed to forfeit $5 million in unspecified assets bought with the money. He faces up to 20 years in jail for mail fraud and wire fraud, plus potentially five years for defrauding the US.
Prasad's sentencing hearing will take place on March 14, 2023. No details have been released concerning Hansen or Baker's sentencing, and Apple has not yet commented on the case.
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9 Comments
He admits to taking 17 million and has to give back 5? Who says crime doesn’t pay? And he’ll probably be out of jail in five years for admitting to the crime. Murderers get less time.
Perps usually don’t plead guilty unless they got some kind of plea deal. I wonder what it was.
Writing a statement detailing and admitting to a crime is a required part of a plead deal in almost every court, there's even a word for that bit but it escapes me. So it's almost a certainty that they all got plea deals for lesser sentencing. So yeah what did they get? Probably not a open plea deal but if the prosecutions case is a strong as it looks, they're all over a barrel.
The mail fraud bit is federal, and there's no parole. Don't know how time off for good behavior compares to state time. So maybe they don't want to do Federal time or maybe they'd want to do Club Fed instead of state time.
Are you high? Can't find work or keep a job? Let's say they 'only' do 5 years but I bet it'll be more. That's $1200 a year, not counting what they earn doing laundry or making license plates. State or Club Fed should they get the latter, that's not much of an income at least for most of us. Maybe that's good money for you.
That doesn't mean they get to keep the 6 grand. They may be required to make full restitution or that may be forgiven as money already spent with the bulk returned. We won't know what's what without a lot more info.