A former Cabot Creamery executive is headed to jail.
Federal officials say 54-year-old Ronald Rup Jr., formerly of Fairfax and now Essex Junction, was sentenced to 27 months behind bars.
Rup is the former head of technology for Agri-Mark, Cabot’s parent company. Last fall, he admitted to buying unneeded office supplies on the company dime and then selling them for a fraction of the price, pocketing the money for himself. Officials say he stole more than a million dollars from the company. He’ll begin his sentence in September.
“He’s extremely remorseful, he understands what he did was wrong. He wants to take responsibility for it, he knows he’s let down a lot of people in his life, his family, himself, his former employers,” said McArthur.
Rup’s job with Agrimark included purchasing necessary equipment as the company established new corporate headquarters in Waitsfield.
In court, Rup admitted buying additional, un-needed computer networking supplies on the company card beginning in 2012 and pocketing the cash when he sold the items to a Texas tech company for less than half their value.
“I believe that they took advantage of my client at a time that he was vulnerable and they certainly recognized that they were receiving property at far less than the value of that property, so I would suggest there may be some culpability there,” said McArthur.
It is not clear if investigators are pursuing charges against that Texas company. McArthur says his client committed the crime to cover a costly divorce settlement.
“So, that cause him to really make some bad mistakes,” said McArthur.
Court paperwork indicates he also bought vehicles, jewelry and made home repairs with stolen funds.
Spokespeople for Agrimark say an internal audit uncovered the theft and the company has been fully re-imbursed by its insurance provider.
That means the company has not been negatively affected.
However, the spokesperson says they can’t provide more detail as an FBI investigation is still on-going that could be a hint that authorities have not given up on pursuing the tech company which purchased the supplies.
Source: WCAX
