Anybody who buys toner cartridges for personal use or for the office knows how much they can cost: anywhere from $80 to $259. It was one man’s bright idea to overstock his office with such supplies and sell them on the black market. Former Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson employee Adrian Rodriguez, 39, plead guilty Tuesday to stealing over $376,000 in copy machine toner cartridges and selling them on the sly for only $10 a pop, or $15 for color.
Rodriguez had worked for ten years with the firm, so he was a trusted employee; only after a December sting hit him up as he sold a load of toner equipment out of his delivery truck was he finally caught, and ultimately charged with a count of grand larceny in the second degree, for which he could receive 5 to 15 years in prison.
Reuters quoted Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance as making a moral tale of this case: “Cases like this one, involving employee abuse underscore the importance of reviewing company records in the effort to prevent employee theft,” he said in a statement. That may be one moral of the story, and perhaps it is easier to keep tabs on the staplers, but wouldn’t it be nice to somehow anticipate who could be trusted in the first place?