Randal Ray Seal, a 54-year-old former analyst in Microsoft’s accounts payable department, has been sentenced to two years in prison and two years of supervised release for stealing more than $1 million from the company.
In a court hearing, Judge James Robart told Seal that there “needs to be a lesson that this kind of money laundering and fraud is not going to be permitted and the accountants of the world can end up going to jail because of it.”
Seal today repaid $515,375 of the money he stole and was ordered to repay an additional $550,380.
Microsoft first discovered the embezzlement after Seal had left the company. He was questioned by FBI agents about the fraud in 2009, admitting to the theft. He pleaded guilty in May of this year.
Seal, a Shoreline resident, claimed that he initially stole the money in order to point out problems in Microsoft’s bookkeeping system. “I made the poor decision of revealing the defects by exploiting the flaws in the department’s system,” Seal told the court, according to the Seattle P-I.
