An accountant who admitted to stealing $3.1 million from agribusiness giant Cargill, Inc. has been sentenced to five years in prison.
Diane Backis was sentenced Tuesday in federal court in Albany to mail fraud and filing a false income tax return. She agreed to pay $3.5 million in restitution and faces two years of supervision after her release from prison.
Federal prosecutors say Backis, 51, not only diverted customer payments to her own accounts over 10 years, but caused at least $25 million in losses to the Minnetonka, Minnesota-based company.
She pleaded guilty last November.
Backis was an accounting department manager at Cargill’s Albany grain elevators. Backis admitted she sent customers invoices for animal feed at prices far below what her employer had paid, causing the company millions in losses.
Was this article valuable?
Here are more articles you may enjoy.
Surveys Show Concerns About Florida Market, But Consumers Are Warming Up 
In Alabama, Shot Employee Gets No Workers’ Comp and No Employer’s Liability 
Viewpoint: Agentic AI Is Coming to Insurance Industry – Much Faster Than You Think 
Product Liability Verdicts Are on the Rise but There Are Ways to Avoid Them 
