Several days ago, a former Washington State employee, Matthew Randall Ping, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for wire fraud after stealing nearly $900,000 from the government.
Money Lost, Trust Shaken
Ping pleaded guilty to wire fraud and to submitting a false tax return.
US District Judge Tiffany M. Cartwright had this to say during the hearing: “Your crime was very serious but was driven by severe addiction…. Gambling addiction can destroy the life of someone who is otherwise an upstanding citizen.”
In the last 15 years, no single insider embezzlement case has cited such a large amount of stolen money.
This has shaken the people’s trust in the state’s financial safeguards.
The Incurable Addiction
Ping used a large amount of the taxpayers’ money to feed his addictive behavior, by using most of it for gambling.
Ping mentioned that he tried to overcome his addiction, but there were limited resources at his disposal, he further explained.
With the money Ping funded, at least six trips to Las Vegas, paid off a loan for a luxury car, and he was still able to live normally.
In the sentencing memo, Assistant United States Attorney Dane Westermeyer, the prosecutor for this case, made note of the fact that much of the money went towards Ping’s gambling addiction.
Worse still, because he never reported the income to the IRS on his tax returns, nearly $250,000 of tax money was lost.
The Quick and Dirty
In their press release, the US District Attorney’s office described how Ping was able to pull this off for years.
Ping used to work at the Washington State Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH). Two years after being promoted, he abused his credit card access to begin a sophisticated scheme through which he embezzled $878,115.
Using several accounts Ping himself made, named in a way that would make it seem as though they were legitimate accounts, he perpetuated his scheme.
Associated with OAH business vendors, he would make charges to OAH credit cards and transfer the money to his own account, thus misappropriating it.
He managed to evade detection by using his position as a management analyst and by abusing his duties as the Department’s credit card custodian. He would approve his own fraudulent transactions and avoid procedures.
A Culprit with a Conscience
Ping has agreed to pay full restitution to the state, their insurer, and the IRS, which comes to a total sum of $1,118,362.
After his sentence in prison, he will be placed under supervised release for 3 years.
Ping was urged by Judge Cartwright to make an active effort in helping other gambling addicts and to make information on regulations and services more widely known.