Nearly a year after she was arrested, Sue Sachdeva will be sentenced for stealing $34 million from the Koss Corporation.Sachdeva, a former executive at Koss, will be sentenced in federal court Thursday.
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On Monday, prosecutors released their sentencing memorandum, asking the judge to put Sachdeva away for 15 to 20 years. In his memo, Assistant U.S Attorney Matthew Jacobs said the Mequon woman “wanted for nothing” in her life. Yet, still, he said, she pulled off a massive fraud.
Jacobs said during her multi-million dollar shopping sprees she bought tens of thousands of “frivolous, luxury items” for the “high” it gave her.
Showing the seriousness of the fraud, Jacobs said, “Published reports indicate that this is the largest embezzlement uncovered in the United States during 2009. Government counsel is personally unaware of a larger embezzlement case in the Eastern District of Wisconsin in the past 25 years.
In asking for a harsh prison sentence, prosecutors for the first time laid out how she did it.
They said she sent money from Koss into her own accounts to pay for her lavish shopping sprees and then reduced the amount of cash Koss was bringing in.
Prosecutors said her fraud was so “multi-layered and complex” experts have still not been able to figure out how she hid millions of dollars.
Tracy Coenen, a Milwaukee forensic accountant who’s written two books on fraud investigations, said it appears no one in the company was watching Sachdeva.
“If it was your household budget and your wife was questioning your spending, she would probably say ‘where is the receipt for groceries’ or whatever it is. The same thing should have been happening at Koss,” Coenen said.
Sachdeva’s attorney did not get back to 12 News, but the federal memo said she is claiming mental issues and traumatic events “impaired her judgment, insight and her ability to control her behavior.”
Jacobs disputes that writing, “While mental health issues, including a compulsive shopping disorder, might help explain Sachdeva’s conduct, it does not excuse it.”
