Former Dynamex Corp. Employee Sentenced to 21 Months in Prison for Theft and Tax Fraud

TRENTON—A former employee of Dynamex Corp. was sentenced today to 21 months in prison for stealing almost $175,000 while managing the company’s New Jersey operations and failing to disclose his stolen income to the IRS, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.

Joseph R. Algoo, 39, of Monroe Township, New Jersey, previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Anne E. Thompson to an information charging him with wire fraud and subscribing to false tax returns. Judge Thompson imposed the sentence today in Trenton federal court.

According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:

From 1999 through November 2009, Algoo worked as the branch manager for Dynamex’s New Jersey operations, including its offices in North Bergen, Secaucus, and South Brunswick. He processed and submitted delivery orders for independent drivers who made deliveries for Dynamex, which is based in Dallas and was a provider of same-day and overnight delivery services.

Algoo admitted he accessed Dynamex’s internal computer systems and made changes to delivery orders, causing Dynamex to pay the independent drivers more than Dynamex should have. Algoo then obtained a portion of the improper payments and made significant cash deposits into his personal bank accounts. He obtained $174,285 in improper payments from Dynamex in 2007 and 2008.

Algoo also admitted that he signed false personal federal income tax returns in 2007 and 2008, when he did not disclose to the IRS the $174,285 in improper payments that he received from Dynamex in those years. Algoo’s intentional failure to disclose this income to the IRS resulted in a tax loss to the United States of approximately $51,487.

In addition to the prison term, Judge Thompson sentenced Algoo to three years’ supervised release and ordered him to pay $174,285 in restitution to Dynamex and to cooperate with the IRS in repaying more than $100,000 he owes the United States.

U.S. Attorney Fishman credited special agents of the FBI, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Michael B. Ward; and IRS-Criminal Investigation, under the direction of Acting Special Agent in Charge JoAnn S. Zuniga, for the investigation leading to today’s sentence.

The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Aaron Mendelsohn of the U.S. Attorney’s Office Economic Crimes Unit in Newark.

This case was brought in coordination with President Barack Obama’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force. President Obama established the interagency Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force to wage an aggressive, coordinated, and proactive effort to investigate and prosecute financial crimes. The task force includes representatives from a broad range of federal agencies, regulatory authorities, inspectors general, and state and local law enforcement who, working together, bring to bear a powerful array of criminal and civil enforcement resources. The task force is working to improve efforts across the federal executive branch and, with state and local partners, to investigate and prosecute significant financial crimes, ensure just and effective punishment for those who perpetrate financial crimes, combat discrimination in the lending and financial markets, and recover proceeds for victims of financial crimes.