The former head of PR at video game retailer GameStop embezzled nearly $2 million before the company found out and fired him.
Chris Olivera (pictured, via LinkedIn) admitted to a Texas court last week that he was guilty of a fairly simple embezzlement scheme, in which he set up a fake company and effectively paid himself out of GameStop's coffers for services it claimed to provide.
Here's how it worked: Olivera incorporated a fake company called "Cloud Communications LLC" and made up a fake employee, "Jennifer Miller." Olivera would then invoice GameStop (as Miller) for services that "Cloud Communications" provided. As the vice president of corporate communications and public affairs at GameStop, Olivera simply approved the invoices himself and had checks made out to his fake company.
Between around July 2009 and around April 2011, Olivera managed to cash $1,965,900 worth of false invoices before, apparently, GameStop figured out what was going on. Though the company did not specifically say why, it admitted to Kotaku that it fired Olivera last year.
It wasn't actually GameStop that took him to court, it was the government. Olivera plead guilty to one count of mail fraud, as he used the United States Postal Service to deliver the false invoices. Mail fraud carries with it a $250,000 fine and a maximum of 20 years of prison time.
According to Olivera's LinkedIn profile, he has been an executive at Sony since June, 2011, currently claiming to be its senior vice president of corporate affairs. We were unable to verify with Sony if this is still the case.
Seems a bit misleading to include the "Sony" part in the headline. He was an executive at Gamestop while he perpetrated the fraud, and Sony had nothing to do with it, other than hire him well after he was fired from Gamestop.
@ Frank Cifaldi - I have to agree with Jeff Grant on this one. As much as I'm upset with Sony due to its past actions, the company had nothing to do with Chris Olivera's actions and that's assuming if he ever even worked for Sony to begin with.
I'm with Jeff and Jef. Plus you don't actually know he's a Sony executive; it's a tenuous claim on a Linkedin profile. It's a Gamestop executive who stole from Gamestop; if he now works at Sony that's a byline, not a headline.
Yeah I totally agree! The headline says "Sony Exec stole 2 million from gamestop. The bottom of the article says you don't even know if he is an executive at Sony. The reason you don't know why he works for Sony is because the source of the information is the same person who stole almost 2 million dollars. Come on dude.
Frank C. Your headline is misleading.
You are shouting one thing - and then whispering at the end of your article, "that thing i shouted might not be true"
@Frank, the title is misleading, I thought a guy from Sony was the one who stole the money and not an employee of gamestop that afterwards ended up working in Sony. Very unprofessional specially since the information isn't verified either: "We were unable to verify with Sony if this is still the case. "
He's just a small fraction of the CEOs who are bribing politicians, finding loop holes so they can rob everyone blind. I look forward to this era of corruption ending with all of them in prison for life. Then and only then can we move toward recovery.
All the revolutions in the last century happened pretty quick all things considered. Of course one set of corrupt bastards consistently ended up being displaced by another set of more horrifying bastards, but in the mean time you got to see the first set strung up. That is, if you weren't hunted down for your third uncle's involvement in something completely meaningless. Anyway, point being, I reckon any country in its current state could reasonably turn itself inside out in less 3 years. Afterall, they say all societies are 3 meals away from revolution and all that.
This title is totally misleading and begs the question as to why the author thought it was a good idea to put in "Sony" when the company itself had little to no connection with the article itself. *Golf clap*
EDIT: However, I can understand if you want to state that it was someone from a company, but you could have just went with "Chris Olivera" rather than "Sony executive" :/
What I find curious is why didn't GameStop take him to court? The article makes it sound as though he was simply fired (last year), and only now it's the government that presses charges? And on mail fraud instead of embezzlement?
$0.02
Frank C. Your headline is misleading.
You are shouting one thing - and then whispering at the end of your article, "that thing i shouted might not be true"
Wayne Tarrance: Get 'em with what? Overbilling, mail fraud? Oh, that's exciting.
Mitch McDeere: It's not sexy, but it's got teeth!
EDIT: However, I can understand if you want to state that it was someone from a company, but you could have just went with "Chris Olivera" rather than "Sony executive" :/