Reading Man Pleads Guilty, Sentenced for Stealing Nearly $500,000 From His Former Employer

BOSTON - Attorney General Martha Coakley's Office announces that the former Manager of Accounting for a local television station pled guilty in Suffolk Superior Court for embezzling nearly $500,000 from his former employer and using those funds to pay personal credit card bills. Philip McCabe. age 49, pled guilty late Friday afternoon to the charges of Making False Entries in Corporate Books (2 counts) and Larceny over $250 (2 counts). After the plea was entered, Superior Court Judge Lauriat sentenced McCabe to serve two years in the House of Correction, six months to serve, with the balance suspended for three years. Judge Lauriat also ordered McCabe to serve 10 years of concurrent probation, with the first three years of probation being supervised. McCabe must also pay $25,000, the amount of the deductible not covered by the insurance which reimbursed most of the loss.

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 on January 29, 2009. He was arraignmeed in Suffolk Superior Court on February 13, 2009, where he pled not guilty and was released on personal recognizance. On January 22, 2010, he pled guilty to all charges and was sentenced.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant Attorney General James O'Brien, Chief of Attorney General Martha Coakley's Corruption and Fraud Division, with assistance from investigators Jim McFadden and Carl Mullen of the Financial Investigations Division, and State Police assigned to the Attorney General's Office.

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