Indian-origin man sentenced to 33 months in prison for embezzlement in US

NEW YORK: An Indian-origin man has been sentenced to nearly three years in prison and ordered to pay USD 2.6 million in restitution for being convicted of mail fraud and embezzlement.

Dinesh Shankar, 41, of San Jose, California was sentenced to 33 months in prison as a result of the mail fraud conviction for embezzling from a medical device company, US Attorney David Anderson said.

In addition to the prison sentence and the USD 2.6 million restitution, he was also ordered to serve a three-year term of supervised release.

Shankar will begin serving his sentence this year.

According to the plea agreement, from March 2013 until January 2018, Shankar was an employee of a medical device company.

Beginning July 2013 until December 2017, he submitted false expense reports and false invoices to the company's finance department, causing the company to pay more than half a million dollars in excess of the legitimate expenses and expenditures for services provided to the company.

In addition, Shankar admitted that he created false invoices that appeared to be issued by six different entities, which were actually fictitious business names for entities that he controlled.

He prepared the false invoices to make it appear that the entities provided testing and quality assurance services to his employer when, in fact, they had not provided the services.

Shankar admitted he caused a total loss to the company of about USD 2.5 million.

A federal grand jury indicted Shankar in April last year charging him with six counts of mail fraud.

He pleaded guilty to one count in November and the remaining counts were dismissed.