MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – A 39-year-old Faribault man was sentenced Tuesday in federal court for stealing more than $400,000 from his employer, money he then used to build his nearby lake home.
Ronald Leo Schaeffer was sentenced to 33 months in federal prison on one count of bank fraud for fraudulently writing 127 company checks to himself.
He was charged on Dec. 6, 2012, and pleaded guilty on Jan. 16, 2013 to stealing about $432,504.10 from his former employer, Environmental Tillage Systems, Inc. (ETS). Schaeffer was its sole in-house accountant and admittedly wrote checks anywhere from $400 to $1,200 to himself to deposit into his personal checking account.
Schaeffer then covered his tracks by making false entries into the company’s accounting records, indicating that the checks were issued to legitimate ETS vendors instead.
