UPDATE: Randal Ray Seal, a Shoreline resident and ex Microsoft employee who stole $1.1 million from the company, was sentenced to two years in federal prison and ordered to pay back the full amount to the company. U.S. District Court Judge James Robart split the difference Tuesday morning, imposing a sentence halfway between recomendations from the prosecution and the defense.
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An accountant who admitted to stealing from Microsoft Corp. to teach his bosses a ?lesson? will likely be sentenced to prison Tuesday.
Pleading guilty to money laundering in December, Randal Ray Seal stole $1.1 million while working as an accountant at the Redmond corporation.
Seal had become disenchanted in his work following a series of layoffs and a management change in his department. In a letter to the court, the 54-year-old faulted himself for worrying more about his ego than his conscience.
?When asked by the government, I stood up and took responsibility,? Seal said in a letter to the court. ?I didn?t make the same mistake twice.?
According to prosecutors, though, Seal made that ?mistake? many times over a year, stealing $1.1 million from his employer.
?The defendant abused the trust that his employer reasonably placed in him,? Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Parrent told the court.
?Over a period of many months, the defendant executed a scheme to steal more than $1 million,? Parrent continued. ?He had many chances to change his mind and end the scheme.?
An accountant and Shoreline resident of two decades, Seal went to work for a Microsoft contractor in the early 1990s and was later hired by the Redmond corporation to work in the corporate services department.
Seal, by his own description, initially took pride in his work at Microsoft and enjoyed working there until 2003 when a series of changes at his department saw him audited repeatedly. According to his attorney?s statements to the court, Seal took the supervision as a slight.
In a letter to the court, Seal claimed to have first stolen from Microsoft in an effort to expose a flawed disbursement system.
According to his version of events, Seal?s supervisors remained uninterested in the holes in the bookkeeping system, and Seal found himself in possession of the money he claims to have taken as a ?lesson to his superiors.?
Then, in 2004, Seal was laidoff. He left the company, and the money left with him.
?I made the poor decision of revealing the defects by exploiting the flaws in the department?s system,? Seal told the court.
?When I was terminated,? he continued, ?I had not thoroughly thought out how I would divulge my actions. ? In the end, instead of doing what was right and returning the money, I succumbed to my behavior was totally inappropriate.?
While stealing from his employer, defense attorney Robert Chadwell told the court, Seal robbed himself of a life after Microsoft.
?Randy has agonized over his actions and been unable to see any kind of future for himself,? Chadwell said in court documents.
?In fact,? the attorney continued, ?he was almost relieved that he was finally able to tell the truth about what he had done, especially to his wife.?
Seal has agreed to pay $515,000 in restitution ? about half the amount prosecutors claim he owes his former employer.
Writing the court, Parrent asked that the court order that Seal pay $1.1 million in restitution. Noting that Seal has cooperated with authorities for two years, the federal prosecutor suggested any objection to a $1.1 million judgment by Seal ?would be a jarring departure from the remorse and responsibility the defendant has demonstrated so far.?
Prosecutors have asked that Seal be sentenced to 2 � years in prison, a year longer than the sentence requested by the defense.
Free on bond, Seal is expected to be sentenced Tuesday morning by U.S. District Court Judge James L. Robart at the Seattle federal courthouse. �
Check the Seattle 911 crime blog for more Seattle crime news. Visit seattlepi.com's home page for more Seattle�news.
Levi Pulkkinen can be reached at 206-448-8348 or levipulkkinen@seattlepi.com. Follow Levi on Twitter at twitter.com/levipulk.
Source: http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Microsoft-accountant-facing-prison-for-1-million-2156484.php
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