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Estela Laluf Genin -- formerly of Rutherford and River Edge -- must serve the entire sentence because there's no parole in the federal prison system.
Laluf Genin began working at the East Rutherford-based company in 1989 and took a management position in 1996, federal authorities said.
Between 2010 and 2016, she and an unidentified company accountant conspired to write checks against the firm’s bank accounts to cash, as well as to various actual company employees and contractors, individuals and shell companies for work they didn't do, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger said.
The two then converted the money to their personal use, the U.S. attorney said.
Laluf Genin omitted the proceeds from her 2016 year tax return, Sellinger noted.
Rather than face trial, she took a deal from the government, pleading guilty during a video conference with a federal judge in Newark last September to wire fraud and subscribing to a false tax return.
In addition to the prison term, U.S. District Judge Julien Xavier Neals sentenced Laluf Genin to two years of supervised release and ordered her to pay $295,297 in restitution.
Sellinger credited postal inspectors of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and special agents of IRS – Criminal Investigation with the investigation leading to the plea and sentence secured by Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew M. Trombly of his Cybercrime Unit in Newark.
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