Buffalo man sentenced for bilking employer of more than $230k

Last update: November 14, 2008 - 4:01 PM

A 38-year-old Wright County man has been sentenced to a year and four months in prison for defrauding his employer of nearly a quarter-million dollars over a five-year period and using that money to pay his credit card bills.

Michael J. Rome, of Buffalo, Minn., was sentenced Thursday in federal court after pleading guilty in August. His sentence included two years of supervised release.

According to his plea:

Rome, employed as the director of finance of the customer-service division of Archway Marketing Services in Rogers, admitted that from July 2000 to August 2005, he created 116 false invoices to make it appear as though Archway owed the Capital One credit card company lease payments that actually were not owed by Archway.

Rome used his position to approve Archway's payment of the false invoices, which were actually payments on his personal credit card account.

The payments totaled $232,784.49.

PAUL WALSH

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