Home Columbia Press Releases 2009 Williston Man Sentenced for $5.2 Million Embezzlement
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Williston Man Sentenced for $5.2 Million Embezzlement

U.S. Attorney’s Office August 26, 2009
  • District of South Carolina (803) 929-3000

COLUMBIA, SC—United States Attorney W. Walter Wilkins stated that William J. Trier, II, 57, of Williston, South Carolina, was sentenced today to 63 months of imprisonment, ordered to pay $5,272,556 in restitution, and to forfeit millions of dollars in assets, for embezzling approximately $5,272,556 from his former employer and for money laundering. United States District Judge Margaret B. Seymour imposed the sentence.

Trier worked at Crane Co., a vending machine manufacturing company in Aiken County, as the director of logistics in the shipping department. From 1997 through October 2007, Trier embezzled funds from Crane by creating phony invoices from two fictitious freight transport companies and submitting them to Crane for payment. He used his position to approve the payment of the fraudulent invoices, and received company payments mailed to a Post Office box he had opened as the mailing address for the phantom companies. Over a ten year period, Trier collected approximately $5,272,556 using the false invoice scam.

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Postal Inspection Service, and the Internal Revenue Service. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Deborah B. Barbier and Mark C. Moore of the Columbia office prosecuted the case.

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