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A judge sentenced the former president of B&B Contractors and Developers Inc. to two years in federal prison for a 10-plus-year scheme to defraud the Liberty company out of nearly $2 million.
U.S. District Court Judge J. Philip Calabrese handed down the sentence Tuesday in Cleveland against Philip M. Beshara, B&B's ex-president, for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud.
After his release, Beshara will be placed on parole for three years and is banned from ever gambling again in any manner, including playing the state lottery.
In admitting his guilt, Beshara said he suffered from depression and had a gambling problem.
Beshara apologized during a Tuesday sentencing for his crimes.
"B&B is satisfied with the sentence and the outcome and thanks the court for its time," according to a company statement.
B&B also thanked retired FBI agent Wallace Sines and Jason Katz, assistant U.S. attorney, for their involvement in the case as well as attorneys Nicholas Sebastiano and Marty Desmond for handling the civil lawsuit.
Samuel J. DeCaria, B&B's ex-treasurer, will be sentenced Thursday for the same two felonies. DeCaria is expected to get probation or perhaps a few months in a federal prison.
Each had faced up to 20 years in prison.
Calabrese on Tuesday ordered Beshara, along with DeCaria, to pay restitution to B&B in the amount of $1,949,466 minus a $466,165 credit for money paid to the company for a total owed of $1,483,300, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Beshara and DeCaria admitted to conspiring to devise a scheme to defraud B&B out of about $1.6 million and collected about $350,000 from inflated invoices between March 3, 2006, and Sept 26, 2016, when they were top officers in the company.
They were charged with the two felonies in an Oct. 5, 2022, bill of information and pleaded guilty seven days later to the counts.
The object of the conspiracy was for Beshara and DeCaria to enrich themselves by improperly withdrawing and diverting B&B funds to Beshara. Beshara would illegally issue or cause others, including DeCaria, to issue checks drawn from the company's account 44 times at First National Bank, according to the bill of information.
Beshara then would either cash the checks or deposit or cause others to deposit the amounts into his personal bank accounts.
According to the bill of information, Beshara also oversaw the evaluation of invoices submitted by subcontractors who worked on construction projects managed by B&B and would inflate subcontractors' invoices so that the subcontractors charged B&B a higher and improper amount.
After paying that inflated amount to the subcontractors, Beshara then had the subcontractors pay him "at least a portion" of that money 49 times.
While overseeing B&B's accounting department, DeCaria admitted in his guilty plea that he allowed, facilitated and failed to report Beshara's fraudulent transactions.