NEW ORLEANS—U.S. Attorney Kenneth A. Polite announced that HOWARD GREGOR, age 52, a resident of Attica, Ohio, was sentenced today after previously pleading guilty to a two-count Bill of Information charging him with mail and wire fraud.

U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt sentenced GREGOR to serve 12 months plus one day in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. Additionally GREGOR was ordered to pay a $5,000 fine, a special assessment of $200, and restitution in the amount of $293,972.

According to court documents, from November 3, 2008, through on or about April 19, 2013, GREGOR worked for Company A, a New Orleans based company that manufactures conveyor belts for use in food processing and packaging facilities. Company A employed GREGOR as an account manager. His sales work required him to travel frequently and incur business-related expenses. Company A had a policy that allowed account managers to submit expense reports for reimbursement of actual out-of-pocket business expenses. Rather than submitting expense reports for actual expenses, GREGOR devised a scheme and artifice to defraud Company A by creating inflated and fictitious items to put on his expense report to cause Company A to pay him for expenses that he did not actually incur. GREGOR submitted these expense reports via U.S. mail and electronic mail. In all, GREGOR caused Company A to reimburse him for nearly $300,000 of expenses that he did not actually incur, causing a loss to the company.

U.S. Attorney Polite praised the work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Postal Inspection Service in investigating this matter. Assistant U.S. Attorney Sharan Lieberman was in charge of the prosecution.