A Vineland man admitted to creating fake invoices in order to steal nearly $850,000 from the trucking company where he worked.
Antwoin Brown, 55, pleaded guilty to second-degree theft by deception last week.
He faces four years in state prison and must pay restitution.
Brown used his position as coordinator of the independent truck drivers the company hired during times of high volume, according to the Attorney General's Office.
He created phony trucking hauls and fake invoices, according to the complaint. Instead of making the checks out to the drivers who were purportedly making these hauls, Brown wrote the checks to himself.
“Antwoin Brown gained the trust of his employer and then he abused that trust for years by stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from him,” said Pablo Quiñones, chief of the Office of Securities Fraud and Financial Crimes Prosecutions. “Our prosecution of Brown should send a message that anyone who embezzles money from their New Jersey employer will be found and prosecuted.”
The investigation found that Brown cashed the checks at local check cashing facilities, then deposited the money in small increments into his personal bank accounts.
The money was used for expenses like home improvements, automobiles, motorcycles, a pool, credit card bills and personal loans.
The scheme went undetected until early 2020, when an independent truck driver received notification from the IRS about unpaid taxes. The investigation revealed that the driver had not received the compensation in question because Brown had been writing the checks to himself, Attorney General Matthew Platkin said.
Brown admitted that from January 2016 to December 2019, he wrote hundreds of checks to himself totaling $846,347.
“The guilty plea we secured in this case makes it clear that we will not allow this kind of criminal greed to go unpunished in New Jersey,” Platkin said. “We will vigorously investigate and prosecute cases like this to protect businesses from criminal schemes perpetrated by disloyal employees.”
The case was investigated by the Division of Criminal Justice Office of Securities Fraud and Financial Crimes Prosecutions with assistance from the New Jersey Division of Taxation Office of Criminal Investigation and the Vineland Police Department.
Brown is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 27.
