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MARTHA COAKLEY

ATTORNEY GENERAL

January 29, 2009 - For immediate release:

Reading Man Indicted for Stealing Nearly $500,000 From His Former Employer

BOSTON – Today, a Suffolk County Grand Jury returned indictments against the former Manager of Accounting for a local television station in connection with allegedly embezzling nearly $500,000 from his former employer and using those funds to pay personal credit card bills. Philip McCabe, age 48, of Reading, is charged with Making False Entries in Corporate Books (2 counts) and Larceny over $250 (2 counts).

In July 2008, the Attorney General’s Office began an investigation after McCabe’s former employer alerted the office of his alleged activities.  McCabe worked in the company’s Accounting Department from January 1987 until June 2007.  Beginning in 1993, he was responsible for paying bank fees, credit card fees, lines of credit fees, and other fees the company was responsible for.  A specially designated account was used for paying these obligations, and McCabe had exclusive control over this account.   

Investigators discovered that McCabe allegedly used the specially designated account to pay for charges on his company-issued corporate credit card from 1998 to 2007, and that the charges were for personal rather than business-related purchases.  Investigators further discovered that not only had McCabe been using this account to pay his corporate credit card bills, but he is alleged to have also used it to pay his personal credit card bills from 2001-2007.  In all, McCabe is alleged to have stolen approximately $500,000 of his former employer’s money to pay for vacations, golf, dining, liquor, clothes, household goods, gas, and hundreds of other personal expenditures charged to his credit cards over a nearly nine year period.

McCabe’s former employer cooperated fully with the Attorney General’s investigation.

A Suffolk County Grand Jury returned indictments against McCabe this afternoon. He has been summonsed for arraignment in Suffolk Superior Court on February 6, 2009.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant Attorney General James O’Brien, Chief of Attorney General Martha Coakley’s Corruption and Fraud Division, with assistance from investigator Carl Mullen of the Financial Investigations Division, and State Police assigned to the Attorney General’s Office.

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