A credit supervisor manager at a Long Island company pleaded guilty to wire fraud Thursday for stealing $1.6 million from his employer to pay for his wedding, lavish overseas jaunts and a since-failed restaurant venture, prosecutors said.
Tony Ream, 34, of Greenville, South Carolina, was busted siphoning the hefty sum via wire transfers he made from his employer’s bank account out over a four-year stretch, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.
The embezzlement scheme, which dates back to October 2020 and ran through November 2024, involved Ream diverting funds from customer refund accounts to his own personal account, prosecutors said.
He would then cover his tracks by marking each wire transfer as a customer refund, court documents show.
“Ream abused his authority and betrayed his employer and its customers to fund his own lavish lifestyle,” US Attorney Nocella said in a statement.
“In just a few years, Ream embezzled over $1.6 million and used the stolen money to pay for his wedding, luxury international travel, and for renovations to a restaurant he had opened.”
His employer, which was only referred to as “the Company” in court filings, is headquartered in Melville, New York.
The business was described by prosecutors as “an American distributor of health care products and services.”
Ream was hired by the company in 2019 as a credit supervisor.
As part of his guilty plea, Ream has agreed to pay back the stolen $1.6 million and faces up to 20 years in prison.
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