ANDERSON, Ind. — An Anderson man has been sentenced to more than three years in prison after pleading guilty to wire fraud.
Nathanial Willis, 34, worked as an accountant and director of administration for an Indiana business for six years.
While working this role, he was responsible for performing business accounting functions, writing and signing checks, making electronic payments, performing reconciliations between the company's accounting and banking records and maintaining the company's account ledgers.
From August 2020 to at least February 2022, the DOJ said Willis defrauded his employer by transferring nearly $1 million from the company's payroll to his personal bank accounts.
Willis then used the stolen money to pay off his outstanding debts and for his own personal use, including online gambling.
Willis made false entries in the company's accounting system to try and cover up what he was doing. The DOJ said he would record that transfers of money were payments of invoices, falsify inventory logs, list jobs as unpaid and void checks.
Willis also received a principal advance of $80,000 from his employer's line of credit in order to meet the company's payroll and vendor payment obligations.
Willis stole a grand total of $952,237,06 from his employer through 120 transactions. The DOJ said this resulted in the company falling into a "substantial financial hardship."
Willis was ordered to pay $877,507 in restitution.
“For a year and a half, this defendant repaid the trust of his employer with deceit and theft, helping himself to nearly one million dollars and cooking the books to hide the evidence,” said Zachary A. Myers, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana. “Fraud and embezzlement can have devastating effects on the victim individuals and companies. The federal prison sentence imposed here demonstrates that those who commit financial crimes will pay a serious price. I commend the FBI and our federal prosecutors for their efforts to investigate these crimes and hold the defendant accountable.”
“This was not just a financial crime but an act of betrayal of the defendant’s employer that could have had a devastating and crippling effect on the business and its employees,” said Herbert J. Stapleton, FBI Indianapolis Special Agent in Charge. “Anyone who believes they can steal without consequence will find out the FBI aggressively pursues those who exploit their positions of trust for personal gain to ensure they are held accountable.”
The FBI investigated this case.
