A woman who used her position in two Texas trucking companies to fraudulently pay excess funds to co-workers and friends was sentenced Tuesday to more than five years in prison. Her co-defendants got probation.
Veronica Rios and six co-defendants were indicted in April 2021. In sentencing this week, Rios received 63 months in prison on six counts of wire fraud. The 63 months was the sentence for each of the counts but will be served concurrently.
Rios pleaded guilty in September.
Electronic records for the proceedings in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas note that the sentencings of co-defendants Pedro Guillen, Maira Vargas, Guadalupe Alsidez, Amanda Hernandez, Mario Martinez and Tommy Bynum all occurred at various times going back to last fall after plea deals. They all received probation and no fine.
According to the initial indictment in the case, Rios joined Texas Chrome Transport and affiliate MJR Truck Lines in March 2017 as an administrative assistant. Her duties included payroll processing.
Some of the co-defendants were employed by Texas Chrome Transport. But three were described as Rios’ boyfriend (Martinez) or simply friends (Vargas and Alsidez).
At the time of the indictment, Rios faced 18 counts of wire fraud. Each of the co-defendants faced three charges each of wire fraud. Various counts were dismissed as part of plea deals.
Total losses to the trucking companies, according to the indictment: $1,407,392.43.
According to the indictment, Rios’ fraudulent activities began in her first year on the job. “Rios began overpaying employees of the company in exchange for a return of some of the amount of overpayment,” the indictment said. The activities continued until 2020.
The overpayments were more than $424,000 to Guillen and more than $140,000 to Bynum. Hernandez received an overpayment of $30,000 for several months in 2019, left the company but continued to get paid by Rios.
“Rios also added non-existent employees to the payroll list,” the indictment said. “After causing the payroll to be processed, Rios would then delete the non-existent employees from the payroll list so that her superiors would not notice that the payroll report contained non-existent employees.”
Those non-employees were boyfriend Martinez and friends Vargas and Alsidez.
Vargas received fraudulent payments of more than $30,000, Martinez got more than $432,000, and Alsidez received more than $200,000. Kickbacks were then paid to Rios.
“Interstate wire communications” with a payroll processing company in Illinois were used in the scheme, an action that presumably is the basis for the fraud case ending up under federal jurisdiction.
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