The former IT manager for the Heinz Endowments pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court to embezzling nearly $1 million from his former employer.
Charles A. Richardson, of Pittsburgh, will be sentenced on June 4 before U.S. District Judge Christy Criswell Wiegand.
A message left for Richardson’s attorney on Wednesday was not immediately returned.
A plea agreement between Richardson and the U.S. Attorney’s office calls for a sentence of one year and one day incarceration to be followed by three years supervised release.
Richardson must also pay restitution — including $250,000 by the time of his sentencing, according to the plea agreement. Investigators said the total loss was $960,448.
Richardson was indicted in June on five counts of wire fraud and four counts of money laundering. He pleaded guilty to just one count of wire fraud, although the plea agreement notes that he takes responsibility for the conduct in the remaining charges, as well.
According to the filing, Richardson worked for the Heinz Endowments from 2014 to 2024 and was responsible for managing technical operations, as well as maintaining its servers and IT systems.
Part of that work also required him to hire third-party vendors and approve their invoices.
At the same time, the indictment said, Richardson had his own company, known as Ops Unlimited, which he registered as a vendor with the Heinz Endowments.
For eight years, investigators said, Richardson submitted fraudulent invoices to his employer seeking payment for IT services purportedly provided by Ops Unlimited.
The indictment alleged that Richardson used the funds he received to pay off credit cards stemming from personal expenses, such as international travel, home improvement, firearms and top-shelf liquor.
According to the indictment, after Richardson learned about the ongoing investigation into his conduct, he gained unauthorized access to the endowments’ servers to delete and attempt to delete documents showing the fraud.
