New Jersey Man Sentenced to 41 Months in Prison for Embezzling Money from Law Firm

WASHINGTON — This is an official press release from the U.S. Department of Justice (USAO - District of Columbia), published as received.

            WASHINGTON – Andrew Robertson, 54, of Harrison, N.J., formerly of the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, was sentenced today to 41 months in prison for embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from an international law firm with offices in Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia, among other locations.

            The sentencing was announced by Acting U.S. Attorney Channing D. Phillips, Matthew R. Stohler, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Secret Service’s Washington Field Office, and Robert J. Contee III, Chief of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).

            Robertson pleaded guilty in April 2021 to one count of mail fraud. He was sentenced in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by the Honorable Colleen Kollar-Kotelly. Following his prison term, Robertson will be placed on three years of supervised release. The judge also ordered Robertson to pay $425,000 in forfeiture.

            According to the government’s evidence, Robertson was employed by the law firm as an office manager of the Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia offices. Between February 2017 and November 2018, he used his firm-issued corporate credit card to make $425,000 in unauthorized personal purchases from retailers, unauthorized payments of personal expenses, and unauthorized payments to his own personal PayPal account.

            Robertson attempted to cover up these unauthorized transactions by creating and submitting fraudulent invoices and accounting classifications to the law firm’s billing department to make it seem as though these expenditures were for legitimate law firm purposes, when, in fact, he knew that these expenditures were solely for his own personal benefit. 

            In announcing the sentencing, Acting U.S. Attorney Phillips, Special Agent in Charge Stohler, and Chief Contee commended the work of those who investigated the case from the Secret Service’s Washington Field Office and the Metropolitan Police Department. They also acknowledged the efforts of those who worked on the case from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, including Paralegal Specialist Amanda Rohde and Assistant U.S. Attorney Kate Rakoczy, who prosecuted the matter.