Meredith Mandracchia, 32, of Brighton, pled guilty to wire fraud last week in Massachusetts Federal District Court. The charge stems from her actions in defrauding her employer of more than a quarter of a million dollars.
The former employee was a senior marketing consultant for Metropolitan Life Insurance.
Ms. Mandracchia worked as a senior marketing consultant in Massachusetts for the New York-based insurer. According to the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts, from 2005 until 2010, Ms. Mandracchia used her corporate American Express card to pay for a wide variety of her own personal expenses. She allegedly made thousands of dollars in purchases at retailers such as Banana Republic, J. Crew, and Victoria’s Secret; payments for time at tanning salons and nail salons; grocery store purchases and numerous calls to psychic hotlines.
In order to conceal her unauthorized individual purchases, Mandracchia fabricated counterfeit invoices for those charges stating that the purchases were from legitimate MetLife vendors for conference sponsorships, membership fees, and other business related goods and services. Relying on these fabricate invoices, MetLife made payments to Mandracchia’s corporate American Express account for the personal expenses she incurred. In addition, the company also made payments to Mandracchia’s personal credit card based upon false invoices she created and submitted as legitimate company-related expenses that she represented she had charged to her own credit card. In total, MetLife alleged that the payments made to Mandracchia for her fraudulent expense charges totaled approximately $230,000.
The maximum penalty for wire fraud is 20 years in prison with three years of supervised release as well as a $250,000 fine. Ms. Mandracchia is scheduled for sentencing on May 2, 2014.
