A Bradford man will be spending six months in federal prison for embezzling more than $100,000 from Minich Electric over a several-year span.
Tyler J. Little, 31, of Bradford, pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud in U.S. District Court in Erie, and was sentenced to six months in Federal Correctional Institution at Morgantown in West Virginia. He will also spend six months on house arrest with electronic monitoring with three years of federal supervision.
He was also ordered to pay restitution — $81,859.49 to Minich Electric and $37,000 to Merchant Insurance Group.
A sentencing memorandum response from Assistant U.S. Attorney Christian Trabold details what the court accepted as a factual background for the case.
From 2011 to 2015, Little worked for Minich Electric as an office manager. The company is owned by Dan Minich, and his son, Matt Minich, lived with Little. Matt Minich and Little had a joint bank account, and Little took care of the household finances, the court records stated.
Little was entrusted with the finances at Minich Electric, too, and had a signature stamp to sign business checks. He also had use of the company’s credit card to make business purchases.
On Oct. 6, 2015, an IRS civil investigative agent went to Minich Electric and asked Dan Minich why he hadn’t paid employee taxes since the second quarter of 2013, saying he owed more than $100,000 in back taxes.
“Minich thought it was a misunderstanding and asked Little to obtain the business bank statements to show the transfer of money to the IRS,” the records read. However, Little said he shredded the statements, and couldn’t access them online because “he had forgotten his password,” the records stated.
Minich went to the bank, got copies of the statements and gave them to the IRS agent. Looking through the statements, neither Minich nor the investigator could find a record of any payments of employee taxes. The agent asked Little about it. He said “he fell behind and had not been able to make the payments as required,” the records stated. “Minich was shocked.”
Minich asked Little if he was stealing; Little said yes, but “advised it was only a few thousand,” the records stated.
Little was terminated, and Minich and his wife began combing over the company’s finances, finding thousands of dollars in unauthorized purchases. They also found that Little had issued unauthorized payroll checks to Matt Minich, signed them himself and cashed them without any of the Minichs being aware of what was happening, the records stated.
The federal investigation uncovered over $30,000 in fraudulent payments to Little, and an overall theft of more than $77,000, the records stated.
Trabold’s statement indicated that Little had sought a sentence of probation only, and that the prosecutors opposed that.
He noted that in seeking the lesser sentence, Little brought up his personal background and “substance abuse problems as mitigation for his embezzlement. Left unexplained by Little is why this should matter,” Trabold wrote. “Little did not steal to pay unexpected medical bills or relieve another’s suffering. He stole to maintain and enhance his lifestyle.
“That’s just plain, old fashioned greed not worthy of a downward variance,” the prosecutor wrote, noting the victims had treated Little like a son.
As conditions of Little’s post-incarceration supervision, he is not permitted to incur new credit charges or open additional lines of credit without approval from his probation officer. Any income tax returns, inheritance or financial gains received must be applied toward restitution, the court records stated.
