Former Employee Convicted of Defrauding His Employer Sentenced to Five Years in Federal Prison

The former Midwest general manager of a nation-wide financial services company who defrauded his employer out of more than $3.4 million was sentenced today to five years in federal prison.

James Dwyer, age 46, from Waterloo, Iowa, received the prison term after a September 26, 2023 guilty plea to one count of wire fraud and one count of filing a false tax return.

Information from the plea hearing and sentencing hearing showed that Dwyer was employed by Mobile Money, Inc. for over 20 years.  Part of Mobile Money, Inc.’s business operations were servicing ATMs across eastern Iowa.  Starting in January 2016, Dwyer defrauded and stole from Mobile Money, Inc. by stealing cash that was meant for ATMs or cash that was supposed to be deposited into a Mobile Money, Inc. bank account.

In January 2021, Dwyer told his superiors, which included someone Dwyer had been friends with for over 30 years, that there was approximately $1.1 million in cash locked in a vault in Waterloo that he could not access because the vault lock was broken.  It was later discovered that Dwyer had intentionally tampered with the vault in order to prevent anyone else from accessing it.  In February 2021, other employees got into the vault and discovered there was less than $100,000 in cash in it.

Also in January 2021, Mobile Money, Inc. executives discovered Dwyer had failed to deposit approximately $2.5 million in cash into bank accounts.  On February 1, 2021, Dwyer sent ten bank deposit tickets to Mobile Money, Inc., purporting to show he had deposited that money.  However, the bank deposit tickets were fraudulent and he had not deposited any such money.

Once Mobile Money, Inc. discovered Dwyer had been stealing from the company, the company determined his fraud had resulted in the company losing $3,407,000.  Even though this money was obtained illegally, Dwyer was required to report it as income to the Internal Revenue Service.  He failed to do so and filed false tax returns for multiple years.

Dwyer was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Chief Judge C.J. Williams.  Dwyer was sentenced to 60 months’ imprisonment.  He was ordered to make $3,407,000 in restitution to Mobile Money, Inc. and the company’s insurance company.  He must also serve a three-year term of supervised release after the prison term.  There is no parole in the federal system.

Dwyer was released on the bond previously set and is to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons on a date yet to be set.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Anthony Morfitt and investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigations. 

Court file information at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl. 

The case file number is 23-cr-2046.

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