MAN PLEADS GUILTY TO DEFRAUDING PAYCHEX AND OTHER
PAYROLL COMPANIES OF ALMOST ONE MILLION DOLLARS

ROCHESTER, N.Y.-- Wilberforce Francis Mensah, 30, formerly of Maryland, pled guilty today to wire fraud in front of U.S. District Judge Charles J. Siragusa, U.S. Attorney Terrance P. Flynn of the Western District of New York announced today. This violation carries a maximum of 20 years in prison. The defendant, a citizen of Liberia, has been detained in this case since July 2007.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard A. Resnick, who handled the case, stated that from May 2001 to October 2004, the defendant executed a scheme to defraud various payroll companies, including Paychex, Inc., a payroll outsourcing company with headquarters in Rochester, New York. To defraud Paychex, the defendant set up fictitious companies and then deceived Paychex into advancing his companies funds representing payroll to be paid to the defendant’s companies’ fictitious employees. The funds would be advanced by Paychex to the defendant’s companies either by checks made payable to the defendant and his fictitious employees, or by funds directly deposited into the defendant’s bank accounts or other bank accounts he used as part of the scheme. During the scheme, the defendant opened up nine different fraudulent payroll accounts with Paychex. The total loss caused to Paychex was approximately $336,474.83.

In addition to defrauding Paychex, the defendant used similar schemes to defraud two other payroll processing companies, Ceridian Inc. and Computing Resources, a/k/a Intuit. Ceridian Inc. had six fraudulent payroll accounts opened by defendant and suffered a total loss of $341,000.00. Computing Resources, a/k/a Intuit, suffered a total loss of $292,370.11.

The conviction in this case was the culmination of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, under the direction of Laurie J. Bennett, Special Agent in Charge.