A Quincy, Massachusetts woman was sentenced Tuesday in federal court for her role in a two-year scheme to embezzle stock from Canton-based Equiserve, one of the US’s largest stock transfer companies.
United States Attorney Michael J. Sullivan and Peter Zegarac, Acting postal Inspector in Charge of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in New England, announced today that JIE LING CHO, age 32, of Quincy, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Joseph Tauro to 3 years’ probation. CHO was also ordered to pay $149,000 in restitution. CHO pleaded guilty on February 19, 2004, to one count of making a false statement to the government to assist her at-the-time boyfriend, Kam Wai Chui, to embezzle money from Equiserve, where he worked as a data processor.
At the earlier plea hearing, the prosecutor told the Court that, had the case proceeded to trial, the evidence would have proven that from June 2001 to December 2002, using his data entry position at Equiserve, Chui engaged in an elaborate scheme to defraud shareholders of corporate stock held in accounts at Equiserve. Chui diverted over $200,000 worth of stock from legitimate accounts into phony ones that he had created using his own company password. Once the stock resided in a phony account, Chui would call the Equiserve stock transaction phone number and order the sale of the stock, the proceeds of which would be mailed to addresses controlled by CHO. One of those addresses was a post office box in Allston that CHO rented by filling out the post office box application form under a false name. Using a dummy bank account established at Citizens Bank by CHO’s brother, Tony Cho, Chui was able to launder the proceeds, converting it into cash for his own use.
Tony Cho pleaded guilty to one count of making a false bank entry and was sentenced on November 17, 2004 to 2 years’ probation. Chui pleaded guilty to five counts of mail fraud and four counts of money laundering and was sentenced on December 20, 2004 to 2 years and 9 months’ incarceration.
The case was investigated by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. It was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Mitchell in Sullivan’s Economic Crimes Unit.