Crime & Safety
Prison For Former Cox Exec Who Embezzled Millions
As a vice president, she was heading up a marketing plan, but steered money to a company that funneled most of it back to her personally.
ATLANTA, GA — A former vice president with Atlanta-based Cox Communications is headed to federal prison after helping embezzle millions of dollars from the company.
Janet West, 49, of Paradise Valley, Arizona, was sentenced in Atlanta to two years, one month in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release.
With headquarters in Sandy Springs, Cox is the nation's third-largest cable television provider, also offering telecommunications and home automation services.
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West, according to court documents, was in charge of a nationwide marking plan for the company's gigabit-speed wireless service. Beginning in 2011, she ordered an assistant to make payments, on the assistant's corporate credit card, to a third-party company — supposedly for marketing services.
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Actually, those services were mostly never provided and most of the money was secretly transferred to West. In all, she steered $2.4 million in payments to that third party, prosecutors said.
She also repeatedly falsified conflict-of-interest certifications with Cox, failing to disclose the payments she made to herself. West used the money for her own personal benefit, including making payments on two houses she owned in Arizona.
In addition to the prison time, West was ordered to forfeit her interest in the two properties and to pay full restitution to Cox.
"This greedy defendant misused her high-ranking position to deceive and steal millions of dollars from her employer," U.S. Attorney Byung J. "BJay" Pak said in a news release. "She then used the money to fund her own lifestyle, including paying for two houses she owned. Whether the defendant is in the public or the private sector, unauthorized use of funds belonging to others for personal gain is a crime."
The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Photo via Shutterstock
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