South Plainfield Accountant Stole $2.3M From His NYC Employer: Feds

SOUTH PLAINFIELD, NJ — A Middlesex County man was charged with embezzling over $2.3 million from the Manhattan-based company where he worked as a controller since 2001, U.S. Attorney Philip Sellinger announced Monday.

Gerard Beauzile, 61, of South Plainfield, is charged by indictment with 10 counts of wire fraud. He appeared in a virtual federal court hearing Monday and was released on a $200,000 unsecured bond.

U.S. attorneys said that from 2001 through February 2021, Beauzile worked as controller, heading the accounting department for a New York City-based company. The company was not named. A controller, or comptroller, oversees a company's accounting, including revenue, payroll and expenses.

Prosecutors say that on a monthly basis, from 2014 through December 2020, Beauzile issued company checks to himself. He deposited those checks into his personal bank account at bank branches in New York, near his employer’s headquarters.

Over the course of the scheme, Beauzile issued approximately 140 checks to himself, totaling in excess of $2.3 million.

Beauzile hid his scheme by failing to enter some of the checks into his company’s accounting system, causing checks to appear as though they were made payable to vendors when, in fact, Beauzile issued them to himself.

Prosecutors say he also changed the invoices to correspond with the accounting of those checks and falsified his company’s bank account statements.

He is facing a maximum of 20 years in prison.

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