Former Housing Authority manager admits embezzling $111,083

The former accounting manager at the Hoboken Housing Authority, Eric Hurt, pleaded guilty Wednesday to embezzling $111,083 from the agency by writing checks to himself, federal prosecutors said. The defendant admitted he wrote 34 such checks from August 2001 to February 2004, and concealed the theft by falsely reporting that the checks were to various vendors.

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The White Collar Crime Prof Blog has chimed in with a tongue-in-cheek post that observes that the Hurt case makes "[e]mbezzlement . . . sometimes [seem] as easy as opening up a can of beer on a hot summer day." It argues the embezzlement here clearly resulted from a total failure of internal controls.