Man admits defrauding employer, selling goods

A Prairieville man was sentenced Friday in Baton Rouge federal court to 15 months in prison after admitting that he sold $204,116 in computer equipment that belonged to his former employer.

Dustin J. Landry, 32, also was ordered by Chief U.S. District Judge Brian A. Jackson to pay full restitution to the firm, MMR Group Inc. of Baton Rouge. The judge ordered Landry to report to prison by 2 p.m. Nov. 26.

In a plea agreement witnessed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Alan A. Stevens and defense attorney Joseph E. Blackwell, Landry admitted that he committed mail fraud by selling approximately 70 of MMR’s laptop computers, 28 tablet-style portable computers and 38 hard drives on eBay.

A bill of information, in which Landry was charged by Stevens, showed that Landry was an information-technology specialist at MMR, a business that “provides electrical services, instrumentation, and other technical services to the construction industry.”

Landry’s duties, according to his mail fraud charge, “included ordering computers and computer equipment and providing IT services to MMR’s employees.”

But Landry boosted his income by $196,841 over a four-year period by selling the 136 pieces of stolen equipment, according to the bill of information.

The approximately $7,000 difference between Landry’s illegal profit and his former employer’s loss was due to the fact that he sometimes sold equipment at a discount, his mail-fraud charge shows.

For example, in August 2009, Landry caused “MMR to purchase a Dell Precision M6400 laptop computer, at a cost of approximately $6,381,” according to the charge.

When that computer arrived in Baton Rouge, Landry sold it “to C.B., in Butler, Pensylvania, for approximately $4,494,” according to the charge to which he pleaded guilty.