Feds say South Plainfield man robbed $2.3 million from New York company

A Middlesex County, New Jersey, man is facing a potentially lengthy stay in federal prison after he was charged with embezzlement for thinking no one would notice $2.3 million missing from the unnamed New York-based company where he had been the controller since 2001.

Gerard Beauzile, 61, of South Plainfield, New Jersey, is charged by indictment with 10 counts of wire fraud. He appeared by videoconference before U.S. Magistrate Judge James B. Clark, III, and was released on $200,000 unsecured bond.

Beauzile worked as the financial controller at Energy Intelligence, a Madison Avenue company that specializes in the power transition, oil markets, LNG, geopolitical risk and competitive intelligence markets.

According to U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger, documents filed in this case and statements made in court, Beauzile worked as controller from 2001 through February 2021, heading a New York-based company’s accounting department.

On a monthly basis, from 2014 through December 2020, Beauzile issued company checks to himself, and 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, which he used for his own benefit.

Beauzile hid his scheme by failing to enter some of the checks into the victim company’s accounting system; causing checks to appear as though they were made payable to vendors when, in fact, Beauzile issued them to himself; changing the vendors invoices to correspond with the accounting of those checks; and falsifying the victim company’s bank account statements.

Each count of wire fraud is punishable by a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a maximum $250,000 fine.