Date: July 25, 2023 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov LOS ANGELES — A former sales manager was sentenced today to 18 months in federal prison for embezzling money owed to his employer and for knowingly filing false tax returns. Wing Hong Lee of Alhambra, was sentenced by United States District Judge Virginia A. Phillips. The court found that Lee exploited his position to embezzle $478,434 from his employer and then failed to report his ill-gotten gains to the IRS. In addition to the prison term, Judge Phillips ordered Lee to pay a total of $659,177 in restitution to his former employer and the IRS. Lee pleaded guilty on March 13 one count of subscribing to a false tax return. Lee was employed as a sales manager by Maxtrade LLC, a South El Monte-based wholesaler and retailer of recreational vehicles and motorsports accessories. Lee processed customer orders for Maxtrade and created invoices for those orders. After the goods had been shipped and received by the customers, Lee falsely and fraudulently informed Maxtrade's accounting department that the customers had cancelled the orders. As a result of these false and fraudulent representations, and as Lee intended, Maxtrade's accounting department did not expect to receive any payment from the customers for the orders. In reality, the customers had not cancelled the orders, Maxtrade had already shipped the goods, and Lee pocketed the money the customers owed to Maxtrade for the goods they had received. Lee also admitted that he lied on his federal income tax returns for tax years 2010 through 2015 and owes $ 180,743 in income taxes. Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated this matter. Assistant United States Attorney Alexander B. Schwab of the United States Attorney's Office for the Central District of California prosecuted this case.
