Former A&P exec to serve 3 years for fraud scheme

John Moritz, the former A&P senior executive who pled guilty to charges of using company resources to fund a event ticket business run for his personal gain, was sentenced to 36 months in prison, U.S. attorney Paul J. Fishman said.

As previously reported, Moritz, a SVP of marketing for the Montvale, N.J., retailer, between December of 2010 and December of 2011 arranged for A&P to purchase thousands of tickets to sporting events, concerts and shows presumably for their use to reward employees and business partners. Moritz however sold the tickets over the Internet, admitting in court he fraudulently obtained more than $1.2 million selling more than 7,000 tickets for tickets including the Super Bowl, concerts by Bon Jovi and Lady Gaga, and New York Yankees playoff tickets.

Moritz concealed the scheme by directing certain ticket vendors to not issue invoices for the tickets; and others to issue invoices of less than $100,000 in order to stay within his spending limits; and for tickets to be delivered to his home or dropped off in person, rather than be sent to the retailer’s headquarters.

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Moritz pled guilty in May to wire fraud in connection with the scheme. The charges were punishable by up to 20 years in prison. In addition to the three-year sentence, U.S. District Court judge Kevin McNulty ordered Moritz to serve three years of supervised release following his prison sentence and pay $3.2 million in restitution.

Moritz, a former marketing executive at Sears Holdings, was appointed by A&P in 2011, shortly after it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and reportedly left the company in 2012. A&P in a statement earlier this year denounced his actions and said it cooperated with federal authorities investigating the case.

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