INDIANAPOLIS, IN - Timothy M. Morrison, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana, announced that Robert Rosenberg, 41, Indianapolis, Indiana, was sentenced to 16 months imprisonment today by U.S. District Chief Judge David F. Hamilton following his guilty plea to wire fraud. This case was the result of a investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Rosenberg was employed as a purchasing manager at a Sealed Air Corp. manufacturing facility in Indianapolis since around 2001. Sealed Air makes commercial packing materials, such as foam boards. ROSENBERG’s duties including buying routine items for the facility. He was given a corporate credit card for work-related purchases and had a discretionary limit up to $4,000 per transaction and $40,000 per month he could charge without prior approval.
Beginning around October 2003, ROSENBERG began using his corporate credit card for personal purchases. Items would be delivered to the plant and he would pick them up at the loading dock. He continued this scheme through October 2007 when the corporation identified suspicious charges attributable to Rosenberg and confronted him.
Rosenberg immediately quit his employment. Audits of all of Rosenberg’s charges on his corporate credit card attributed $613,014.27 in personal, unauthorized, charges by Rosenberg that were paid by Sealed Air.
Most of the items purchased were tied to Rosenberg as he used the credit card to fund a drag racing business of his, so many of the charges were to auto or racing equipment supply businesses. The FBI has conducted its own audit of all the records and confirmed a loss to Sealed Air of approximately $613,000.
Rosenberg had a racing business called "Chaos Drag Racing." A search warrant executed at Rosenberg's house, which had a large pole barn on the property, uncovered hundreds of thousands of dollars in car parts, which correspond to the purchases he made with the company credit card. Those items have been seized and are being stored by the FBI. The government intends to forfeit these items, and sell them and apply the proceeds to restitution.
According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Winfield D. Ong, who prosecuted the case for the government, Chief Judge Hamilton also imposed two years supervised release following Rosenberg's release from imprisonment. Rosenberg was ordered to make restitution in the amount of $613,014.27.
