GRAND RAPIDS, MI—Creighton Lonel Goins, 45, of Muskegon, was sentenced to 48 months in federal prison for fraudulently stealing technology equipment paid for by his employer and reselling those items on the Internet. Goins was ordered to pay $921,158 in restitution to the victim of the scheme, Trinity Health. He will serve three years of supervised release after his prison sentence. Goins was immediately remanded to the custody of the U.S. Marshal. The Honorable Robert Holmes Bell, U.S. District Judge, imposed the sentence.

Goins pled guilty in June 2014 to one count of wire fraud in a scheme involving his former employer, Trinity Health, one of the largest Catholic health care delivery systems in the nation. Goins committed his scheme to defraud between 2006 and 2010 while employed by Trinity as a senior information technology services manager. Goins misused his purchase authority to buy computer equipment converted the stolen items to cash by selling them at discounted prices on the Internet. At the height of the fraud, Goins used a freight service to ship an entire pallet of computer equipment to a warehouse and distribution facility in New York for delivery to one of his regular purchasers of the stolen items.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Miles, Jr. said, “Trinity Health provided Mr. Goins with a good job, promoted him to management, and entrusted him with the supervision of the information technology system for one of its subsidiaries, Mercy Health Partners. In return, Goins systematically stole more than $900,000 over four years that went undetected because of his position and deceptive conduct. This sentence will punish him for stealing from a non-profit community health organization that provides free or reduced health care services in the Muskegon area, and should deter others from committing this type of crime.”

The case was investigated by the FBI and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher O’Connor.