Former executives get prison for nearly $2M defrauding of Arrow Electronics
A former vice president at Colorado-based Arrow Electronics and the CEO of a contractor have been sentenced to federal prison for defrauding Arrow a global provider of innovation services and components of nearly million Michael Vergato who worked for Arrow was sentenced to months in prison Mark Perlstein was sentenced to months and fined The U S Attorney s Office for the District of Colorado noted Monday that Vergato was convicted on six counts of wire fraud after a six-day trial in May Perlstein pleaded guilty to wire fraud in June The men were jointly ordered to make restitution of million Each will serve three years of supervised release after their prison terms Leadership explained according to Perlstein s plea agreement and evidence presented at Vergato s trial the two devised a scheme to bill Arrow Electronics based in Centennial for performance tuning services Vergato oversaw performance tuning of Arrow s Oracle EBS statistics bases including work by Perlstein s company Perlstein and Vergato billed the input management company for services purportedly done by a shell company created by Vergato The company Oracle Performance Tuning and Optimization or OPTO submitted fraudulent contracts and invoices to Arrow for work that was never performed according to agents Perlstein approved the invoices and wired payments to OPTO Nearly million in company funds were funneled to OPTO personnel announced Perlstein and Vergato divided the proceeds and concealed their involvement by using personal email accounts other corporate entities and fake identities Vergato used his stepdaughter s identity to conduct business on behalf of OPTO according to administration Tax records substantiated OPTO paid no salaries and issued no contractor forms Vergato kept approximately of the million spending it on luxury vehicles credit card payments retirement accounts and rent Perlstein personally received more than million Corporate fraud of this magnitude undermines confidence in our business locality and harms employees customers and shareholders alike reported U S Attorney Peter McNeilly These sentences send a clear message executives who abuse their authority for personal gain will be held accountable U S District Judge Nina Y Wang presided over the sentencing The FBI investigated the occurrence The prosecution was handled by assistant U S attorneys Nicole Cassidy Bradley Giles and Bob Brown Get more business news by signing up for our Financial system Now newsletter Get more Colorado news by signing up for our daily Your Morning Dozen email newsletter
