Minnesota Man Heading to Prison for Cheating Cisco in Alleged Fraud

A Minnesota man was sentenced to spend over a year in prison for cheating Cisco Systems out of about $388,000.

The U.S. Attorney's Office said Phillip Webb, 46, of Brooklyn Park, was sentenced to 15 months in prison on a count of mail fraud.

Webb was a manager of network services for the Postal Credit Union of Woodbury.

Under a plea agreement, Webb admitted that between 2007 and 2009, he falsely told Cisco (News - Alert) that parts in the credit union’s computer systems were broken, according to a report on Forbes.com.

But Webb sold Cisco-supplied replacement parts online. He returned other used equipment to Cisco – falsely claiming they were the defective parts originally provided by Cisco.

TG Daily reports Webb pulled the scheme for 42 different IT parts before it became apparent possible wrongdoing was taking place.

As part of the plea deal he has to pay $170,000 in restitution.

In an unrelated recent case, TMCnet reports that former Apple (News - Alert) manager Paul Devine has pleaded guilty in a federal case that charged him with taking kickbacks from Apple business partners in exchange for giving them confidential information.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Francisco, Devine passed on the company’s confidential information – including product forecasts, roadmaps, pricing targets, product specs, and data obtained from Apple’s business partners – to suppliers and manufacturers of Apple parts, reports TMCnet.

In exchange, the suppliers and manufacturers paid Devine kickbacks, such as payments based on a percentage of the business they did with Apple, prosecutors said. The scheme let the suppliers and manufacturers to negotiate more favorable contracts with Apple, TMCnet said.

As part of the plea agreement, Devine admitted that the loss from his scheme was $2,409,000, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

And in a third unrelated case, TMCnet reports Egypt's former Tourism Minister Zohair Jarana and two Egyptian businessmen were charged with profiteering, embezzlement and aiding the acquisition of public funds by the country's criminal court.