PROVIDENCE – A financial management consultant was sentenced to three years and one month in federal prison today for embezzling more than $700,000 in bank account funds and from employee 401(k) pension fund contributions from New England Anesthesiologists Inc.
John M. Hairabet Jr., 45, former office manager of New England Anesthesiologists Inc. and current president of Anesthesia Management Consultants LLC, was indicted on the charges in September of 2015. He pleaded guilty on July 20, 2017, to six counts of wire fraud, one count of pension fund theft and two counts of money laundering, according to United States Attorney Stephen G. Dambruch’s office.
At sentencing Monday, U.S. District Court Judge John J. McConnell Jr. also ordered Hairabet to serve three years supervised release upon completing his sentence and to pay restitution to the victims in the case, including pensioners whose money was embezzled from the employee 401(k) pension fund. The total amount of restitution to be paid has not yet been determined by the court.
At the time of his guilty plea, Hairabet admitted that between October 2007 and Aug. 12, 2013, in his capacity as an independent contract bookkeeper and office manager of New England Anesthesiologists, and through his management consulting firm, Anesthesia Management Consultants, he embezzled $587,218.36 from bank accounts belonging to New England Anesthesiologists. Hairabet also admitted that he embezzled $120,313 in employee elective deferrals that were to be deposited into an employee 401(k) pension fund.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ronald R. Gendron and Richard W. Rose. The matter was investigated by IRS Criminal Investigation, the U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration.
Rob Borkowski is a PBN staff writer. Email him at Borkowski@PBN.com.
