Apple employee who defrauded company of millions sentenced to three years in prison

A former Apple employee who swindled the company out of more than $17 million with a scheme that double-billed for parts was sentenced to three years in federal prison and ordered to pay nearly $33 million, prosecutors said.

Dhirendra Prasad pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud and conspiracy to defraud the United States in 2022.

Prasad, 55, of Mountain House, California, worked at Apple from 2008 to 2018 as a buyer in the company's Global Service Supply Chain unit. Along with two co-conspirators, who owned two companies that were Apple suppliers, Prasad conspired to double-bill Apple for parts it already owned or had purchased.

Prasad said the scheme began as far back as 2011. It netted him more than $17 million and ran for eight years. Prasad also engineered "sham invoices" that allowed one of his co-conspirators, Don Baker, to take unjustified tax deductions valued at more than $1.8 million.

"Prasad was given substantial discretion to make autonomous decisions to benefit his employer," federal prosecutors and Internal Revenue Service investigators said in a statement Wednesday. "Prasad betrayed this trust, and abused his power to enrich himself at his employer's expense."

In addition to his prison sentence, Prasad will forfeit $5.5 million worth of assets, pay a money judgment of $8.1 million, and restitution of $17.4 million to Apple and $1.9 million to the IRS.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.