A former payroll manager of a White Plains construction company has been accused of wiring $472,731 to himself under the guise of making payments to other employees.
Xiomel Santos of Dobbs Ferry was arrested March 13 and accused of wire fraud.
The criminal complaint identifies the victim only as a road construction and highway maintenance company based in White Plains. An unrelated public document names Santos as a former administrator of a profit-sharing plan for Peckham Industries Inc., a highway construction firm.
Santos began working for the construction company in 2014 as a payroll and benefits manager, according to the criminal complaint submitted by an FBI agent. One of his responsibilities was wiring payments to employees.
From March 2015 to September 2017, the complaint states, he made 33 wire transfers in the names of 12 people who no longer worked for the company.
He was terminated in October 2017 but the alleged discrepancies were not discovered for three months.
All of the payments were sent to one bank account, in Santos”™ name, that was closed about a month after he left the company.
The Santos account was used to pay $276,000 to six credit card companies, $50,000 in debit card purchases, $38,000 in cash withdrawals, and $11,865 to his wife”™s account.
The criminal complaint categorizes the spending as travel, food and other living expenses.
He allegedly spent $2,900 on airline tickets, for instance, for six people who traveled from New York to the Dominican Republic, and $2,107 at a Louis Vuitton store in New York City.
Santos was released on a $50,000 appearance bond, by U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul E. Davison of federal court in White Plains. He is represented by the federal public defender”™s office. The prosecution is being handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney Sam Adelsberg.
