PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD) – A former Maui Jim employee was sentenced to a year in federal prison after pleading guilty to mail fraud and wire fraud.
After pleading guilty in March, Erica L. Hornof, of Bradford was ordered by a federal judge sitting in Peoria to pay $125,472.48 in restitution to Maui Jim.
While employed at Maui Jim, Hornof was a lead repair technician. As a long-term employee, she was responsible for fixing sunglasses and had access to the parts to fix them.
According to a news release by the U.S. Department of Justice, Hornof stole parts from the repair area to make sunglasses and packaged them up and used her personal FedEx account to make shipping labels, and proceeded to ship them through the Maui Jim mailroom.
Hornof had sold the sunglasses to two people who then proceeded to sell them on the internet.
The investigation gathered that Hornof had received $104,860 from the two buyers over a 16-month period. U.S. District Judge James Shadid, found Hornof had sold approximately 2,996 pairs of sunglasses. Each pair was valued at $250.
The investigation found that Hornof’s operation resulted in a $749,000 total loss for Maui Jim.
Hornof will serve her sentence which will be followed by a three-year supervised release, the federal version of parole. Her sentence is specifically one year and one day which allows her to earn up to 15% off her sentence.
Shadid ordered Hornof to report to her designated prison by 2 p.m. on Sept. 19.