| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 18, 2007 WWW.USDOJ.GOV/USAO/CAN |
SAN JOSE – United States Attorney Scott N. Schools announced that Bernadette Escue pleaded guilty yesterday to wire fraud. The plea was entered before United States District Judge Jeremy Fogel.
In pleading guilty, Ms. Escue, 41, acknowledged that from February 200l through October 2003, she was employed as a Global Transportation Manager for Network Appliance Incorporated (“Network”) in Sunnyvale, California. As part of her professional duties, Network provided Escue with corporate credit cards for the purpose of paying for corporate travel. Escue acknowledged that she defrauded Network by falsely using a corporate credit card to pay for her own personal expenses while representing to Network that those expenses were incurred in the ordinary course of Network’s business. Escue further admitted that in September 2003 she used a Network corporate credit card to pay $12,900 for her son’s tuition at a private high school in San Francisco, and that the total amount she embezzled was over $70,000.
Ms. Escue was originally charged by an information on September 25, 2007 with one count of wire fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343.
Ms. Escue is scheduled to be sentenced on January 30, 2008 before Judge Fogel in San Jose. The maximum statutory penalty for wire fraud is 20 years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine, plus restitution. However, any sentence would be imposed by the court after consideration of the United States Sentencing Guidelines and the federal statute governing the imposition of a sentence, 18 U.S.C. § 3553.
Joseph A. Fazioli is the Assistant U.S. Attorney who is prosecuting the case with the assistance of Susan Kreider. The prosecution is the result of an investigation by the FBI.
Further Information:
Case #: CR 07-00610 JF
A copy of this press release may be found on the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s website at www.usdoj.gov/usao/can.
Electronic court filings and further procedural and docket information are available at https://ecf.cand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl.
Judges’ calendars with schedules for upcoming court hearings can be viewed on the court’s website at www.cand.uscourts.gov.
All press inquiries to the U.S. Attorney’s Office should be directed to Natalya LaBauve at (415) 436-7055 or by email at Natalya.LaBauve@usdoj.gov.