Iowa warehouse supervisor sent to prison for stealing over $400K from his employer and lying to a credit union

CEDAR RAPIDS – A Dubuque-area man, who stole and sold over $400,000 worth of his employer’s goods on the Internet, was sentenced to 78 months’ imprisonment.

Chad Michael Saeugling, 40, from Asbury, Iowa, received the prison term after his pleas of guilty on June 8, 2016 to one count of Mail Fraud and two counts of Making a False Statement to a Financial Institution.

At his plea hearing and in a written plea agreement, Saeugling admitted he was employed as a supervisor at a Peosta, Iowa, warehouse between 2004 and 2014. From 2009 through August 2014, Saeugling defrauded his employer by selling his employer’s goods on the Internet. Specifically, Saeugling advertised goods found in his employer’s warehouse on eBay, an Internet marketplace. Once an eBay shopper paid defendant for an item, Saeugling placed his own UPS or FedEx shipping label on the item and put the item on a UPS or FedEx truck, hiding the item among items his employer was shipping. Saeugling then used his access to a computerized inventory system to falsely adjust the stolen item out of his employer’s inventory to avoid detection.

Shortly after Saeugling’s mail fraud scheme was discovered, Saeugling agreed to purchase a house from his father. In order to secure a home mortgage loan for the property in late 2014, Saeugling made a false statement concerning his income to a federally insured credit union. Saeugling also falsely told the credit union that his father had gifted him $22,000 to purchase the home when, in truth, Saeugling had previously supplied his father with the $22,000, in cash, which his father then routed through two different bank accounts before providing the $22,000 in two $11,000 checks to Saeugling at the time of closing on the home.

At sentencing, Chief Judge Linda R. Reade of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa found defendant “spit in his employer’s eye” and led his own father in criminal activity. The judge rejected Saeugling’s claim that a bank official had told him to route funds through his father in two different accounts. The judge found Saeugling had “no credibility” and “no conscience,” and his criminal activity would have continued were it not for the courage of one of his coworkers at the warehouse. Further, the judge found Saeugling had violated the terms of his release pending sentencing by possessing firearms and ammunition, which he was selling to his coworkers at his workplace. The judge concluded Saeugling was at an “extremely high risk to reoffend.”

Saeugling was sentenced in Cedar Rapids and sentenced to 78 months’ imprisonment. A special assessment of $300 was imposed, and he was ordered to make $423,025.52 in restitution his employer’s insurer. He must also serve a five-year term of supervised release after the prison term. There is no parole in the federal system.

Saeugling is being held in the United States Marshal’s custody until he can be transported to a federal prison.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Tim Vavricek and investigated by the Dubuque County Sheriff’s Office.