Flanders man gets 3 years for bilking employee health funds
Receives 3-year term from Warren County judge
A Mount Olive man was sentenced to three years in prison Tuesday for misappropriating more than $330,000 in client funds that were intended to fund the client’s employee health insurance plan.
William Boudreau, president of Managed Benefits Plans in Hackettstown, was also required to pay $50,000 in restitution at his sentencing before Warren County Superior Court Judge Matthew Curry, according to acting Attorney General John J. Hoffman.
Boudreau, 69, of the Flanders section, pleaded guilty in October to second-degree theft by failure to make required disposition of property received for stealing $331,800 intended to cover the employee health premiums for his client, New York-based Putnam Savings Bank (now known as Putnam County Savings Bank). In exchange for his guilty plea, prosecutors agreed to dismiss a charge of second-degree misapplication of entrusted property.
Boudreau committed the crime to support his ailing business, Hoffman stated in a release announcing the sentence.
“Prison is the appropriate place for this man who betrayed his fiduciary duties as steward of the funds intended to pay an entire staff’s health insurance premiums,” Hoffman said. “Instead of making the insurance payments, he stole the money to prop up his ailing business, risking the medical insurance of those unsuspecting employees.”
According to Hoffman, Boudreau's company was hired in May 2009 as the third-party administrator for Putnam Savings Bank. As part of the agreement, Putnam required Boudreau to consolidate all of the Empire Blue Cross health insurance premium bills for its employees into a “global” bill. MBP would send the bill to Putnam, and Putnam would then pay MBP for the total premium charges. MBP was then responsible for paying all of the individual bills to Empire.
In 2011, MBP began losing money, Hoffman said, and instead of paying Putnam’s insurance premiums, Boudreau spent the money to keep his business afloat. Despite illegally funneling Putnam’s money into MBP, Boudreau’s company was insolvent by Dec. 1, 2011
Staff Writer William Westhoven: 973-917-9242; wwesthoven@GannettNJ.com.