‘The theft was fatal’: Employee used 189 credit-card refunds to embezzle nearly $200,000 — bankrupting packaging firm

Wed, September 8, 2021, 1:29 PM

There is no such thing as a victimless crime. The trusted controller of a family-run Pennsylvania packaging firm has been sentenced to two years in prison for stealing nearly $200,000 from the company’s coffers, sending it into bankruptcy and all its workers to the unemployment line. Victoria Mazur, 54, of Pittsburgh, had worked for the Gateway Packaging Corp. from 2012 until 2017, during which she secretly pocketed $195,000 of company funds, federal prosecutors said.

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Ex-controller whose thefts put her employer out of business is sentenced

TORSTEN OVE
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
tove@post-gazette.com
SEP 7, 2021 1:04 PM

A former controller who embezzled from a family-owned Westmoreland County company and put it out of business is headed to prison for two years.

Victoria Mazur will also have to pay restitution of $195,000.

U.S. District Judge Donetta Ambrose imposed those terms on her Monday.

Mazur, 54, of Plum, had pleaded guilty to wire fraud in 2019 in connection with systematically stealing from Gateway Packaging Corp.

From December 2012 until December 2017, she issued herself and her husband 189 fraudulent credit card refunds totaling $190,829, which were deposited into her bank account. She also used the company's credit cards for personal use for an additional loss of about $4,000.

Prosecutors said she concealed what she was doing by supplying the company owners with fake financial statements understating the firm's sales figures.

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First Published September 7, 2021, 1:04pm