A former employee of a New Jersey auto dealership has been sentenced to seven years in state prison and ordered to pay more than $1.3 million in restitution after pleading guilty to stealing from his employer through a fake billing scheme, prosecutors said.
As reported in Automotive News, Martin D’Amato, 40, of Beachwood, New Jersey, worked in a digital advertising role at Pine Belt Nissan of Toms River when the theft occurred, according to an Oct. 3 statement from the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office.
The dealership discovered the theft in October 2021, when managers noticed credit card expenses that far exceeded budgeted amounts, the prosecutor’s office said. An internal review raised concerns about suspicious charges that were eventually traced back to D’Amato.
Detectives from the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office Economic Crime Squad arrested D’Amato in September 2022 on charges of theft and money laundering. He was held briefly in the Ocean County Jail before being released after eight days under New Jersey’s bail reform laws.
Prosecutors said D’Amato operated the scheme from April 2019 to September 2021, creating several limited liability companies under his name to make it appear he was providing legitimate advertising and marketing services for the dealership. He then charged the dealership’s credit cards for services that were never performed.
To disguise the theft, D’Amato used an online payment processing service that made it appear as though the payments were going to third-party vendors. The money was then funneled through the shell companies and ultimately transferred into his personal bank accounts, investigators said.
The losses totaled $1,329,677, according to the prosecutor’s office. As part of his sentence, D’Amato is required to repay that full amount to Pine Belt Nissan and its insurance company. Yeah, right!
He pleaded guilty in April to one count of theft. On Oct. 3, a state Superior Court judge in Ocean County sentenced him to seven years in New Jersey State Prison.
Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer said in a statement that the case was handled by Senior Assistant Prosecutor Alyssa Mandara, Supervising Assistant Prosecutor Christopher Heisler, and detectives with the office’s Economic Crime Squad.
The Pine Belt Auto Group operates several dealerships in New Jersey, including Nissan, Chevrolet, Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge, and Subaru locations. The company did not publicly comment on the case, but restitution will be split between the dealership and its insurer.
The investigation highlights the increasing complexity of white-collar crimes in the digital age. Authorities said D’Amato’s use of online payment systems and fictitious business entities made the fraud difficult to detect at first, as the transactions initially appeared consistent with normal marketing and advertising expenses.
According to prosecutors, the dealership’s accounting department uncovered the irregularities only after reviewing vendor statements that didn’t match invoices on file. The discovery triggered the criminal investigation that led to D’Amato’s arrest a year later.
D’Amato will serve his sentence in New Jersey State Prison, with the restitution order remaining in effect until the full amount has been repaid.
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