Repeat Embezzler Sentenced to Prison for Stealing More Than $610,000 from His Employer

Used Payroll Position to Deposit Payments Labeled for Former Employees to Own Account

ANTHONY G. HILL, 45, most recently from Thurman, Iowa, was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Seattle to 30 months in prison, three years of supervised release and $508,354 in restitution for wire fraud. HILL is a former employee in the payroll department of Wireless Advocates, a Seattle cell phone company. Over three years HILL used his access to the company’s payroll system to access the accounts of terminated employees, changed the terminated employees’ direct deposit account information to an account in his own name, and processed without authorization payroll, commission, bonus, and expense disbursements in the names of those terminated employees. HILL stole $610,558 using this scheme. At sentencing Chief Judge Robert S. Lasnik noted that HILL had repeatedly engaged in this type of criminal scheme.

According to records filed in the case, between 2006 and 2009, during his employment at Wireless Advocates, HILL changed the direct deposit information for 12 separate terminated employees, and made at least 110 unauthorized direct deposit transactions to his own account. Some of those employees suffered tax consequences because of the false reports of income. HILL’s employment at Wireless Advocates was terminated in August 2009, and his replacement uncovered evidence of the scheme. After an extensive internal investigation, the company referred the case to the FBI

This is the third time HILL victimized an employer with this type of embezzlement scheme. In 1996, as a temporary employee at Western Wireless, he stole about $9,700 by again taking over the direct deposit accounts of terminated employees and issuing them payments that went to his own bank account. The theft was discovered after HILL left for lunch one day in March 1996, and never returned. He was arrested in 2009, and HILL repaid the victim and the charge was dismissed.

In June of 1996, HILL went to work in the payroll department of MFS in Omaha, Nebraska. He embezzled from that employer by issuing checks in the names of terminated employees and depositing them to his account. He was charged in December 1996 with the theft, but was not arrested until 2001. HILL failed to appear for his court hearing on the charge in 2002—the case remains unresolved. At the time of his arrest in Iowa, HILL was again employed in a payroll department. He has been in custody at the Federal Detention Center in Seattle since March 2011.

In asking for a significant sanction prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memo, “Mr. Hill lost the benefit of the doubt long ago. He has now victimized three employers in 10 years. After his prior arrest in 2002, he fled those charges and simply returned to the same pattern of criminal conduct, abusing his employment position and access to payroll and personal information.”

The case was investigated by the FBI. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Mary K. Dimke.

For additional information, please contact Emily Langlie, Public Affairs Officer for the United States Attorney’s Office, at (206) 553-4110 or Emily.Langlie@USDOJ.Gov.