Philadelphia Bookkeeper Sentenced to 8 ½ Years in Prison for Embezzling Almost $1.6 Million from Former Employer

PHILADELPHIA - U.S. Attorney William M. McSwain announced that Peter Goodchild, 56, of Philadelphia, PA, was sentenced 102 months’ incarceration and ordered to pay $1,589,315 restitution by United States District Judge Gerald A. McHugh for his scheme to embezzle that amount from his former employer, QwikSource, over a ten-year period from 2005 until 2015. The defendant was convicted by a jury in April 2019 on 48 counts of wire fraud, 10 counts of money laundering, one count of aggravated identity theft and six counts of filing false income tax returns.

As the former bookkeeper for QwikSource LLC/GMI Technical Sales LLC of Florham Park, NJ, the defendant operated his scheme by opening a PayPal account using his employer’s name, transfering funds from QwikSource’s bank account to that PayPal account, moving the funds from that PayPal account to another PayPal account belonging to his girlfriend, and then moving the funds from his girlfriend’s PayPal account to one or more of his personal bank accounts. The defendant further concealed the embezzlement by making false financial entries on files he maintained for QwikSource that increased the cost of goods sold by the same amount of money that he had stolen from QwikSource’s bank account.

“My Office takes offenses like embezzlement, tax fraud and money laundering very seriously,” said U.S. Attorney McSwain. “The defendant stole more than a million and a half dollars by abusing his position of trust. My Office will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to protect innocent individuals and businesses from being victimized by this type of fraud.”

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Anita Eve.