Former Chief Operating Officer of Covid-19 Testing Kit Company Sentenced to More Than Six Years in Federal Prison for Embezzling $1.85 Million

CHICAGO - The former Chief Operating Officer of a suburban Chicago company that sold Covid-19 testing kits has been sentenced to more than six years in federal prison for embezzling more than $1.85 million in company funds.

While on pre-trial and pre-sentencing release for an earlier fraud scheme, DENNIS W. HAGGERTY, JR. issued fraudulent payments from the Willowbrook, Ill.-based company's bank account for services and goods purportedly provided by himself or the company's main vendor, a manufacturer from whom the company purchased Covid-19 testing kits. In reality, the services and goods had not been provided. The money purportedly sent to the testing-kit supplier was wired to a bank account that Haggerty controlled, and he spent the funds for his personal benefit.

In addition to the wire transfers, Haggerty issued checks drawn from the company's bank account to himself, knowing that he would spend the money for his personal benefit. Haggerty concealed his fraud by making false and misleading statements on the checks and to the company's president.

In all, Haggerty in 2021 and 2022 embezzled and fraudulently misappropriated more than $1.85 million from the company.

Haggerty, 48, of Burr Ridge, Ill., pleaded guilty earlier this year to a wire fraud charge and admitted that he committed the offense while on pre-trial and pre-sentencing release. U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey on Thursday sentenced Haggerty to six years and five months in federal prison.

Haggerty must serve the sentence after completing his federal sentence for the earlier fraud scheme. In the prior case, Haggerty pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering charges for swindling hospitals that had paid him millions of dollars for scarce personal protective equipment in the early weeks of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. He was sentenced in December 2022 to nearly five years in federal prison.

The recent sentence was announced by Morris Pasqual, Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, Douglas S. DePodesta, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Office of the FBI, and Mario Pinto, Special Agent-in-Charge of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General. The government was represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney L. Heidi Manschreck.