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published on May 12, 2017 - 9:36 AM
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A former Fresno CEO was sentenced to one year in prison for embezzling more than $500,000 from her company’s pension plan.

U.S. District Judge Dale A. Drozd sentenced Mary Williams, 70, Monday after the former Aeroplate CEO pleaded guilty to  embezzlement in January.

Williams admitted to taking $509,000 from the engineering and contracting firm’s pension plan from 2011 to 2016.

One of the fund’s assets was a set of real estate parcels in Fresno that at one point was appraised at more than $900,000 in value.

Under federal law, assets that belong to pension plans can only be used to fund the plan, which must pay future benefits to employees, and not the business that started the plan.

According to the plea agreement, Williams and the company used the properties to raise money for the company. Eventually, the company was unable to repay its loans, and the properties were foreclosed on. The fund became insolvent because it did not have enough money to pay expected benefit claims.

However, the plan’s benefits are federally insured by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which protects employees from losing their benefits when their plans are insolvent.

The judge also ordered Williams to pay that money back in restitution to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.


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