*NEWS*SALESMAN STOLE $1.72M IN TONER

[Anonymous]

Salesman stole $1.72M in toner
A
former Teaneck resident pleaded guilty Thursday to stealing printer
toner cartridges worth $1.72 million from the Clifton stationery supply
company where he worked, authorities said.Account executive Michael D.
Peller admitted in Superior Court in Hackensack that he stole the
cartridges from AOS Acquisition Corp. by secretly putting them on the
account of a client, the former Hudson United Bank of Mahwah, said
Thomas R. Clark, a state deputy attorney general. Peller then resold
themThe scheme came to light after AOS became suspicious because Peller
was paying for some of the Hudson United orders with his personal
checks, according to a lawsuit filed by AOS in Superior Court in
Paterson.Papers filed in the two cases say that Peller stole 30,000
cartridges between December 2003 and Sept. 13, 2005.Peller, 63, pleaded
guilty to theft by deception and faces up to 10 years in jail and fines
of more than $3 million, authorities said. He agreed to a judgment
against him of $955,398 — the amount left unpaid for the
cartridges.The Attorney General’s Office says it will recommend Peller
get five years when he is sentenced May 18.Peller — who now lives in
Belle Mead in Somerset County, according to Clark — could not be
reached for comment.AOS attorney Jennifer Ewers Hurley declined to
comment.Ronald Coleman, a Newark attorney for one of Peller’s main
customers, said he wasn’t surprised at the plea because the salesman
left a strong paper trail behind.

Coleman said his client —
Rueven Weinstein, of Rockland County-based R&M Industries of NY, a
supplier of stationery goods — innocently bought cartridges for
$800,000 from Peller. The salesman had said he “had personally gotten
hold of a number of job lots,” Coleman said.”There is a sense of
sadness at what happened to what we thought was a decent guy,” said
Coleman, adding that Weinstein had known Peller for several years. “It
was really just an absolute abuse of trust.”AOS, which is also known as
Allied Office Supplies, is one of the nation’s largest independent
dealers of office products, with 17 sales offices throughout the United
States.Peller joined the company in February 1990, and resigned in
September 2005. After Hudson United became a customer in 1999, Peller
controlled the account, according to the lawsuit. It accused Peller of
breach of fiduciary duty, fraud and theft, and resulted in a summary
judgment against him.The suit said that Peller created dummy orders
under Hudson United’s name and then picked up the goods himself at the
warehouse, saying he would deliver them personally.”He also indicated
to warehouse personnel to make sure that the cartridges to be picked up
were ‘fresh’ — i.e., had at least a four-month expiration date,” the
suit said.Although AOS sent paper invoices to customers, Peller asked
AOS employees to put the Hudson United invoices on computer disks,
which he delivered to the company after deleting the dummy orders, the
suit says.

The salesman paid for 44 of the fraudulent orders
with his credit card, and another three by personal check, the suit
said.Coleman said his client was partly convinced that Peller’s
merchandise was legitimate by the appearance.”The stuff was presented
to him in perfect shrink wrap, right on the pallet” Coleman said. “No
one would have dreamed that someone would have the audacity to ship
stuff from his own company based on a false purchase order.”

[Author]

March 19, 2007 at 9:44 AM