A Tampa man, identified as 34-year-old Zachary Rugen, has been sentenced to a five-year federal prison term for committing wire fraud and possessing firearms as a convicted felon. As reported by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida, U.S. District Judge Virginia M. Hernandez Covington handed down the sentence and enforced a forfeiture order amounting to $440,755.18 following Rugen’s guilty plea on April 8.
During the period between October 2020 and March 2022, while working as the personnel director for a St. Petersburg company, Rugen embezzled over half a million dollars. He manipulated his access to the business’s payment system, rerouting funds meant for vendors to accounts under his control, living a lavish lifestyle on the embezzled money, which included expensive vacations and gambling sprees. Unfortunately, while Rugen was paying off personal debts with the company funds, some of these moneys were desperately needed by the vendors he stole from.
Significant financial harm was inflicted on the unnamed small business, with the chief operating officer testifying that it would take no less than five years for the company to recover from the inflicted financial damage. According to court testimony, the ramifications of Rugen’s actions were felt beyond the company walls, as one vendor teetered on the verge of collapse due to the fraudulent activities…